How many Catholics are in the world?

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Depending on where one lives in the world it can often seem like either everyone is Catholic or nobody is Catholic! So it can be hard to get a real sense of just how Catholics fit into the world as a whole. Well, here are some numbers for you.

Approximately 33% of those, or 2.2 billion, consider themselves Christian. That makes Christians the largest religion in the world by far. However, Islam is currently growing at a higher rate than Christianity.

Just over half of those Christians, or about 1.1 billion, are Roman Catholic (with some additional 240 million Eastern Orthodox). That makes Roman Catholics, by an overwhelming margin, the largest “denomination” of any religion on the planet. No other Christian “denomination” comes anywhere close to comparing.

The only other religious entities that can even start to compare in size are the Sunni Muslims (estimated at 940 million) and the Vishnuism Hindus (580 million) , but neither compare in organization, unity, reach, and influence next to that of the Catholic Church.

So if you are ever unsure about the number of Catholics in the world or their influence, just remember that the Catholic Church is an ocean in a world full of ponds and puddles – just as we would hope Christ’s Church would be.

Archbishop Fulton J Sheen once said,
“There are not over a 100 people in the U.S. that hate the Catholic Church, there are millions however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.” —Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Certainly, this statement also applies to those who “call” themselves Catholic but who have no idea what it really means to be Catholic.

So if you count ONLY those who are living true to the teachings of the Catholic faith–which, naturally only God could really know, that number is otherwise impossible to pin down. It is probably a number very small, in reality.

I have a question why don’t those in the catholic religion preach about the good news of the kingdom? Jesus did Luke 4:43 8:1 . he also commanded his followers to preach as well matt 28:19,20. matt 24:14. and as we know. ” for this is what the love of god means, that we observe his COMMANDMENTS; and yet his cmmandments are not burdensome” 1 john 5:3.

Mark – not sure what you mean? The Good News of the Kingdom and Jesus Christ is the central theme and foundation for ALL that the Church preaches. Can you clarify your question a bit and maybe I can help?

thanks for reposnding! didnt think anyone would. before i can clarify my question of “why don’t Catholics (not just the priest but every member of the church) preach about the good news of God’s kingdom.” I say “every member” becuase Jesus mentions to all his deciples that they should preach, matthew 28:19,20. If you look at the definition of preach it is 1. speak publicly on a religious subject. etc. Jesus went from “city to city and villiage to villiage, preaching and declaring the good news of the kingdom of god.” luke 8:1. I guess before i can clarify that question, I need to know what you think gods kingdom is?.. that is from the Bible, of course. thanks for your time.

Mark – I don’t want to get into too much of a tangential discussion on this post. But I’m definitely happy to discuss it with you as I have time. Why don’t we start here since you seem to be wondering a little bit at what the Catholic Church’s beliefs are regarding the Kingdom…

Those may answer your questions or at least give you a better feel for what the Church believes regarding this and what scripture and history back it up. Feel free to respond or shoot me an email if you have more questions from there.

Of course, catholics do preach, in the broadest sense of the word. That is, they spread the good news of Lord Christ on earth through formal preaching as performed by priests, and through various other means such as school education, broadcasting and book and newspaper publishing. However, one of the best ways of preaching is to live the gospel. In such a way, a catholic becomes a lamp that shines for everybody to see.

Almost all of the Catholics in the World are located in countries in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Countries Like the United Kingdom, the United States, and France have less than 20% Catholic denominations. The vast majority of the 1.1 billion Catholics live in poor countries like Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Nigeria.

Since when did “poor countries” become an important factor on ones “quality of life”? In fact, our Lord Jesus Christ taught us that money is not important. Think about it, our Savior could have been born into anything he wanted. He could have been a royal King, or a fancy merchant, but instead he chose to be born of a humble family and to be a humble Carpenter.

Whilst it’s true that the are large demographics of catholics in “poor” countries as you describe them, you need to get your facts straight. You are correct about the UK, but wrong about the US and France. There are almost 45 million catholics in France making it about 76% of that country’s population and over 65 million catholics in the US accounting for for almost 23%. Your comment overall smacks of negativism and of intolerance. One might even conclude that you think the catholic religion is bad or not one that “right thinking”, forward people in “wealthy” countries wouldn’t follow. Fortunately, for the rest of us, you are horrible mistaken.

If there are really so many active Catholics in the United States then why is their group on facebook so small. There are twice as many Mormons in the group Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I bet there are more active or real Mormons in America than there are Catholics. I know of only one Catholic who actually goes. If a Catholic claims to be Catholic but has not gone to church for five years I say they are not Catholic.

If a Christian is not practicing (Preaching and teaching other the gosple of Christ based on Matt. 28:19, 20) they are not a Christian. Scripture is clear that one has to practice ones faith in Christ and be living a moral life based on teaching of Christ. If a person is claiming to be Catholic and not practicing their faith then they are just faithless as one has to “Exercise” their faith in Jesus Christ (Mk 5:36; John 3:18, 6:29, 12:36, 14:1; 2 Corinthians 4:13).

Im sorry but I have to disagree sir.
Just because they are not active does not make them not religious.
I know of many people who dont go to church but twice (2) a year, Christmas and Easter, but spend three hours a day praying in the quiet because they feel like going to church is like bragging, and I dont think that Jesus likes people who show off little things.

Dear Minister, let’s for the sake of discussion assume that Catholics that are not practicing their faith should not be counted as Catholics; then, I think you should apply the same principal on everyone else. Aren’t there any Protestants that count themselves Protestant, when they really aren’t practicing? Aren’t there any Muslims that count themselves Muslim, when they really aren’t practicing? and so on ….

Once a Catholic, always a Catholic! You are either practicing or non-practicing. You don’t have to physically stand in front of people and preach God’s Word – good works spread the word more effectively.

Since when is Facebook a reliable source of information?
Are there really 10 million New Yorkers because i do not see 10 million people in the New York group on Facebook?
Many people do not have Facebook or want to put everything about their personal lives on the website

I have discovered a Roman Catholic “Pilgrims Progress,” written precisely between parts I and II of John Bunyan’s timeless work. It’s title in English will be “Predestined Pilgrim and His Brother Reprobate.” I hope you will watch for it; it’s an excellent Baroque Catholic allegory.

Wrong. Christianity is the belief that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and mankind. Being a christian means following the teachings or manifesting the qualities or spirit of Jesus Christ, (wordnetweb.princeton.edu). “Mormons” do believe Jesus is the savior of the world, and how many “Mormons” have you met that lie, cheat, steal, etc.?

I do not think you are right. I believe in Jesus Christ of the New Testament in the Holy Bible. Which last time I checked, is the same Jesus Christ that the Catholic church believes in (correct me if I’m wrong). I also believe that he is the Savior and Redeemer of the world and mankind. Is that not who you believe Jesus Christ is? I do not understand what you are getting at here…

To believe in Jesus Christ of The New Testament one has to admit He is your Lord (God) & Savior. He & God are one. John 1:1. Jeremiah 17:10 this is God & Revelations 2:23 this is Jesus. Romans 2:16 & Ecclesiastes 3:17 both of these verses deal w/ only God can judge us. So ask yourself why is Jesus judging in revelations.

Jesus Christ IS the judge of man. Personally, I believe it’s because he suffered through all of our sins and pains and weaknesses. So Jesus knows our side of the story so to speak. You mentioned that Jesus and God are one. And your are absolutely right, they are one along with the Holy Ghost. But not one in personnage and being, they are one in purpose. When they act together like this, it’s refferred to as the ‘God-Head’. Now, back to how you stated that only God can judge us, once again you are right. But when the scriptures state that, they refer to the God-Head as God. It is to their standard, their bar, that we will be held accountable. But Jesus will be the main judge over us.

As of now, that is the best way I can explain it. But don’t take my word on it.

If you are interested and daring, I recommend reading the book entitled, “The Plan of Salvation: Doctrinal Notes and Commentary” by Matthew B. Brown. It explains many LDS views and has even taught me much. I must warn you though, you will find many conflicting perspectives to other Christian sects. But if you listen to it to learn more about the Mormon faith, you will find alot of awnsers, and more than likely, more questions.

While thinking about this, I came across a question. If Jesus Christ and God the Father are one of the same, who was Jesus praying to while here on earth?

well to answer ur very last question jesus is not only god but he was also 100% human! thats y he prayed to god and thats y he says that he understands us and what it feels like to be tempted by sin. and brings us back to y god sent jesus on earth in the first place which was to clean us from our downfall (thats adam made in the begining of time) Jesus is the new adam

I’ve always been confused when someone says the mormon church is not christian. I always thought that to be christian means to have Christ as your center, to believe in Christ, to hope in Christ, to take upon His name and become Christian. The name of the mormon church is actually, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They believe its the church of Jesus Christ or Christ’s church, and when one is baptised a member, one makes promises with God to take upon Christ’s name and to become a Christian, trying to do as He would do, and following God’s commandments. I’ve just always thought that is what a christian was. If what I just said dosen’t describe a christian, than I guess mormons aren’t christians, just followers of Christ.

Sorry, Dana.
Mormons are followers of Joseph Smith, their founder who changed the bible to suit his needs and completely perverted the message of the true Jesus Christ. Please don’t take my word for it. Look up their founder and his motivations.

You do have to believe that to call yourself Christian. Regardless of what the Mormons believe what the role of Jesus is, they do not believe that Jesus and the Father are ONE, and that the Holy Trinity is ONE God, and we cannot dissect the Holy Trinity. It is a mystery that our brain does not have the capacity to fully understand.

Since the Mormons don’t consider Jesus as God, but they consider Him simply as a prophet, and they want to call themselves Christian; then, the Muslims would also have the right to call themselves Christian, because they also believe that Jesus is not God, but he is simply a prophet, and they also believe that it is Jesus that is going to judge the living and the dead on judgment day.

Once again, you are wrong… “Mormons” believe that our Heavenly Father is God, and Jesus Christ was his only son begotten in the flesh and the savior of the world. And to prove to you, through the bible, that Heavenly Father is God and a seperate being from Jesus, read St. John chapter 17. Especially verses 3 and 21. Also read St. Matthew chapter 6. And then think about what you read. Ponder with a soft heart and apply yourself in trying to understand.

Dana and Joe, every Mormon I’ve ever met is a fine and usually exceptionally loving person. But the Mormon understanding of who Christ is is not the same as the Christian understanding. Therefore, simply having Christ in your name or intending to “follow Christ” is irrelevant if the Christ you are referring to is not the historical, Christian Christ.

Jesus Christ is the third person of the Trinitarian God while being one in Being with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Mormon’s may use similar terms, but they do not ultimately believe in this same Jesus Christ of Christianity.

Here is a brief write-up that talks about a lot of such issues. And this here and here have some interesting questions for Mormon’s good for discussion.

It is a very dangerous road to hoe, when you any group that follows the teaching of Jesus Christ is to Christian or worse not true Christians. Tis type of thinking has lead to millions of deaths over the years through countless wars and crusades – all I might add in the name of God. But just for good measure, Protestant views on Jesus Christ vary radically from Catholics, but I don’t believe anyone would suggest they are not Christian.

(sorry if there’s a double-post, I think there was an error in my last one)

Hello Matthew,

Thanks for taking time to respond to my comment. I think it would be advantageous for you to do a bit more research on the false claims and comments you posted above. While I understand your need to defend your religion (I, having been Catholic for about 30 years), it is not proper to spread incorrect comments about the Mormon religion. There are many people who are misled by the same erroneous diatribe which you continue to spread. If you really want to understand why and what they believe, sit down and speak with a Mormon or attend a church meeting and speak with some missionaries. Simply spreading the same anti-mormon material is not good for your image. Every comment you have shared regarding Mormons has already been debated and lost.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” The point I bring to your attention is that if you want to believe the Catholic church is true and only see it from one perspective, you will find everything else to be false. It is only after you lay down all the evidences with an open mind, will you then see truth.

Merry Browne also said “Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom.” If you want to continue to believe the things which you are unwilling to research and study, you will fall victim as well.

I am not an apologetic, but I will tell you that there is a plethora of information available regarding the history of Christianity – some of which you already have incorrectly stated on the links you gave above. Theologians and scholars have already pointed these out. I will leave it up to you to do your research, really study, ponder and even pray about them. I will also leave you with two links to study more on Mormons, which you would find very interesting if you desire to learn:

Well, Joe, if this is your opinion, you must not be a very good or let’s say devout Catholic. The roots of our denomination go back to Jesus Christ, himself. As he said to St. Peter, “you are my rock; I will build my church on you.” Therefore, the Catholic faith is the only true Christian faith, all others are merely pretenders to the throne.

Just because someone doesn’t believe in the same religion as you or they interpret it differently doesn’t mean its “wrong” or they’re “pretenders”. Let people think what they wanna think. Your opinion is not fact, just so you know.

Thanks for the info, Joe. I checked out the sites you mentioned, and upon first look I can’t find anything I’ve posted or referred to that contradicts what the Mormon’s teach. I have done quite a bit of research on the subject, myself. I’ve also been to Mormon meetings, visited a Mormon temple, sat down with mormon missionaries and spoken civilly at my front door. All of this has confirmed my understanding of what Mormon’s believe.

Can you please point out to me, maybe at least give one substantive example, of where I’ve got it wrong? I don’t want to get into a big debate in the comment section here, but if you could back up your claim before telling me I should have “data before I theorize” I would appreciate it.

Thanks for the links you provided. But instead of correcting any view I had of what Mormon’s believe, they too actually confirmed it on every point I had time to read.

That first link says “Of course, we believe that God and Christ are separate individuals, one in purpose, heart, and mind.” This belief is staunchly in contradiction with traditional Christian teaching and with one of the fundamental characteristics of who Christ is.

Mormon’s don’t really deny these accusations about what they believe. They just think that their understanding of them is correct and others are wrong. And I definitely agree that those points have been “debated and lost.”

Joe – still looking for one point that I got wrong in regard to Mormon belief?

And I would suggest getting your information regarding history from somewhere other than a Mormon source.

I like the en.fairmormon.org wiki made to look just like wikipedia – very clever! But ultimately not true.

I can see how much of the Mormon material can seem “enlightening” or credible when reading it by itself and without knowledge of traditional, orthodox Christianity (indeed, Joseph Smith had no such knowledge and very obviously brought a lot of already skewed Christian ideas from his limited protestant understanding of God). But if you understand the real history of it all and are educated in the classical and traditional arguments for Christianity and understanding of Christianity, it’s not hard to see the holes. It’s an easy choice.

I would encourage anyone interested in learning about Mormonism to do so. It’s an interesting topic. But please do so having also put in as much effort learning about the Catholic faith (from a credible source) or your own current faith so you can make an educated decision. There was no apostasy in Christ’s Church. Trust me. And if you don’t, then just take an honest look at history.

Like I said, all of the Mormons I’ve ever met are largely outstanding people. But the theology of the Mormon church is very seriously lacking.

Well Matthew, it looks like this conversation isn’t going to go anywhere since you appear to be unwilling to listen. You do not understand early Christianity and it’s origins at all, because if you did, you would know the Catholic religion has a very large problem (actually a number of them). Study Popes and the last living Apostle known. Even take a course at a university on ancient Christianity. Understand how and why the Nicene Creed was “created by man” (all angles of it, not just the Catholic version). There is a plethora of information available online if you so choose. But you do not, and instead continue to just mock. I feel fairly confident that you won’t investigate any matter that appears to place the Catholic church in error. Simply stating “it’s wrong, trust me” doesn’t work.

If you haven’t noticed, by the way, references (given in the footnotes) in the above apologetic sites are valid and have been accepted even in universities. They’re not just Mormon references.

If you were to just read and comprehend the above links given, you would understand more, however you chose to state the obvious – these are LDS related sites. Really? Ya think? Do you think Catholics, protestants, evangelicals, etc, would post this information on their website? Who do you think would do it? The objective I gave you was to *read* it and study it (validate the references given in the discussions) and pray about it. You have merely just shook your head at it and said “nope – not true”. How exactly does that open your mind for discussion or consideration?

As I said earlier, I am not an apologetic, but a former Catholic who has already studied quite a bit. I have researched much about the origins of Christianity, the bible, Popes, apostles, etc. There is much you do not know, for if you did, you would certainly question it yourself. Either that or you have not accepted fact as truth.

Your understanding of the early Christian church is not correct, based on your links you gave above. I can only leave you with a recommendation – to stop shunning things because it appears to make your beliefs incredulous. Stop and research. If you read everything of what I gave to you, you would begin to clearly see where you went wrong in your analysis of ancient Christendom.

I will leave you with this last comment regarding Mormons and Christianity. You may think it’s easy to say Mormons are not Christian, simply because they do not believe in some of the attributes which your beliefs share. I leave you with this. I (a Mormon) believe Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer. I believe that only through him, can I be saved through his atoning sacrifice. That if I also follow his commandments and live in a Christ-like manner, I may be eligible to partake of that special atoning sacrifice. Without him, I do not have a way back to my Heavenly Father. That, my friend, is someone who believes in Christ and I will tell you I am Christian. Not believing entirely in Catholicism does not make me a non-christian, it makes me non-Catholic. If you continue to use the argument that Mormons don’t believe in traditional orthodox views of the trinity – then you should again study what happened *prior* to the “invention” (by men) of the “trinity” via the Council of Nicea in 325AD (don’t rely solely on wikipedia for this info). I will also give you a dose of your own medicine. Study materials that are scholarly, and not from Catholic archives. Calling someone a non-christian because they don’t conform to your specific beliefs, ideals or views, is what makes you a judge (a false one at that).

Might I leave you with two verses from Mark Chapter 9:
38: And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.
39: But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.
40: For he that is not against us is on our part.

I submit that you may refer to yourself as a “former Catholic”, but you never were. If you had understood the power of the presence of the true, living Christ, there is no way on Earth you could have left it to follow your false teachings.

And as for Mark 9:38-40, the “us” that Jesus is referring to includes the true physical manifestation of the one Lord in who’s name we can claim and cast out demons, even move mountains; not some empty shadow of an invented nothing.

Look, if Jesus was just a really cool guy, why are people claiming his name to cast out demons. Do you do that? Do you cast out demons in Brigham Young’s name? HE was a really great man – I’m not kidding.

See: Christian = Follower of the true Christ who is Lord and is real and active in our lives.

The “Christ” you describe may have some fine attributes worth emulating; and I can’t deny Mormons do that VERY well; but that “Christ” is not God, by your own admission and so not truly “Christ”. Sorry.

To point to hundreds of bad Christians and claim that that negates the hundreds of thousands of beyond exceptional is as closed-minded as it gets.

Peace and Prayers for you and your dear Brethren to have the scales fall from your eyes and to see the truth. I respect your quest for righteousness, but there is nothing I can say, or anyone can say that will matter until the true Christ, Himself chooses to reveal himself to you.

Carol, I am a Latter Day Saint (A.K.A. Mormon) and yes, we do cast out demons. But we as well do it in the name of Jesus Christ. We also say our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. A resemblence maybe? And as for Jesus not being God, he is not our God. But, he is a God now. That’s what happens when you become a glorified, celestialized, being, after becoming resurrected and obtaining Godhood. Nonetheless, I am thankful and happy that you believe in Jesus Christ and are at least in this walk of life. I too pray that maybe someday you too can find the Truth. If your still reading, may I suggest reading and pondering St. John chapter 17 and St. Matthew chapter 6? It may shed some light.

Trevor (and anyone else considering the Mormon belief system), I encourage you to check out these links which only scratch the surface of the problems found in Mormon theology. Again, most Mormons I meet are awesome, loving people. But their theology is a perfect example of what happens when we decide to become our own popes, ignore the Church that Jesus Himself founded, and interpret scripture (and indeed add to it) out of the context of the fullness of scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Magisterium (which Jesus gave us).

Yes, ponder these things in your heart. But also ponder them in your mind and intellect. That’s why God gave us reason. Faith and reason work together. And reason keeps our heart and faith in check so it doesn’t become simply whims of our own emotion or feelings we mistake for the Holy Spirit.

Matthew, again I admire your faith. And I did read through the links your provided. However, I must say that in some articles it hurt me. It hurt because, God demands respect no matter what Christian faith he is of. But I also found some comfort and joy in reading most of the claims against the Book of Mormon and Mormon beliefs, because in the explanation against the claim, the author would support the Mormon side. EX: Question- “Mormon missionaries condemned as unbiblical the Catholic custom of paying priests and bishops. They said the Mormon Church has no paid clergy, claiming this was the pattern of the first Christians. How can I answer them?” Answer- “Start your next discussion with 1 Corinthians 9:11: “If we have sown spiritual seed for you, is it a great thing that we reap a material harvest from you? If others share in this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?” Paul says that even though he would have been justified in being paid for his ministry (v. 18), he chose to forego payment in order to eliminate a potential source of criticism from his detractors. He explains in verses 14 that “the Lord ordered that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel.””
(from http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/quickquestions/keyword/Mormons/page2 )
Noticed the last part, “…live by the Gospel.”. Is that not what your general authorities are/should be doing?

And here is something that I ask you view and look over. http://www.jefflindsay.com/BMEvidences.shtml . Scroll down and read the part about “Bountiful and Nahom in the Arabian Peninsula”. Does this not almost by itself declare the Book of Mormon as a true and divine inspiration of the Testament of Jesus Christ.

And to further refute some claims made by Robert H. Brom, he stated that to pray about the Book of Mormon is like praying about whether adultery is wrong or not. I’m going to jump to a conclusion here and ganter that Mr. Brom knows that praying about the Book of Mormon’s truth actually works. Why else would he disparage it? If it really isn’t a true book, then shouldn’t he recommend it to all Catholics so they know what they’re up against and what is not correct? Is it right to keep people to a limited knowledge and just tell them that the Book of Mormon is wrong and “evil”? Of course not! At first, he talks about praying and the feeling you get from it. He describes it as something common that one could get from reading ‘Communist Manifesto’. But he is absolutely wrong. When one reads the Book of Mormon and ponders it with much consideration and then prays to God for understanding of whether it is true or not, the confirming sensation one feels leaves absolutely no doubt that it is true. There are no willy dillies that you get after reading the ‘yellow pages’. To know if something like the Book of Mormon is true or not, don’t ask your fellow man. Ask God. Does it not say in St. Matthew 6:7-8 to ask God and he will giveth you an answer?

Here’s something that I’m ignorant on as to your side of the debate. If the Catholic church is the original church of Jesus Christ, where is the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods? Why don’t you have apostles and a prophet? Why is the period when the Catholic church ran supreme ruler commonly called “the dark ages”? Once again, I’m a little ignorant on these subjects for your side of the arguement. Please do inform me on them.

I’m really sorry if I came across in a negative way. And you wasn’t disrespectful, I just think that some articles were a bit too liberal. But then again, I take it a little more serious than I should sometimes. And thanks for the new blog. It really did awnser some of my questions, and I’ll deffinately keep reading through it and others. (To strengthen my own testimony have you). Thanks again for everything.

Trevor I have a question for you. Mormons claims that sometime after the death of the last Apostle the Catholic Church became corrupt and ceased to profess the true Apostolic doctrines and began to teach pagan beliefs instead. This is what Mormons call the great apostasy.
Can you prove historically this alleged claim? In Sacred Scripture it is very clear that Christ left a Church that would last until the end of time and would always faithfully teach the Gospel. This Great Apostasy theory is in reality calling Jesus, who is God, a liar.

I commented on your blog but you removed it. How exactly is that a peaceful pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful, as your blog so suggests? Oh, wait. I guess it’s because I asked you to read up on your Christian history. I guess you have no valid arguments with history, so you just remove them.

Actually, AvSP, I did no such thing. It hadn’t been approved yet. New comments are not shown until they are approved. Either way, you wrote your comment on an entirely different post than this one. Additionally, I don’t normally approve comments from people who don’t use their real email address (which I don’t think you did). So please use a correct email address in the future. It is not made public. Thanks for your contributions!

What would you suggest I read as a source of history on this issue? Thanks for any help.

I don’t believe Matthew is saying that Catholoics are always right,, but I have no obligations to criticize Mormons either, what I want to know is what did Joe see that was wrong with the Catholic Church? Please send this information to c_t_headlam@yahoo.com cause I don’t believe I will remember to visit this site. Thank you!

All ” Christian” denominations of the world is false, they serve only to split the Body Of Christ into factions, and pervert the truth of Jesus’ Gospel. You don’t have to be a part or member of a denomination, church or religion to realize the salvation that Jesus gave his life for.

Jesus died so we can be saved, and he gave the gift of a helper in the form of the Holy Spirit. Anyone who is not born again, and lives in the Holy Spirit’s truth and Word, is fake. No man, no physical act, no membership, no church, no religion, can give one salvation, and those who believe otherwise is in danger of eternal damnation.

Following The Way is simple, but religion and denominations make it difficult to understand, and confuse the masses, and they will pay dearly for their errors. Forget rituals, denominations, religions, status, human scholars, names, labels and any other man made construct of religion, and believe in Jesus, his life, miracle, death and resurrection, and give your life to him, accept and recieve the Holy Spirit, to be saved.

It is simple, but at the same time you must remember that Jesus Christ did in fact establish the Roman Catholic Church in his name. All other secular churches who have claimed to “reform” the church have simply split away from Jesus Christ and his original foundation for Christianity.

I am a Roman Catholic. I say only a real Catholic would the real answer. I been going to church for my whole life every Sunday. Looking at all of you comments it seems that some of you are not even Catholic and don’t even know what you are really talking about. You may be right about less Catholic in the United States Of America. Think before you white something.

It doesn’t matter what you are if you really believe in god you are a Christian . Just because you don’t go to church doesn’t mean your not a christian . You still a Christian if you really believe in God. God bless you all

Hello People I hate to say this to you but the catholic faith is completely wrong and should not be followed. If a catholic would actually pick up a Bible and read it they would discover that what they preach and teach is wrong. The plan of salvation is in the book of Acts Chapter 2:38 and to back up that scripture you must read Roman’s Chapter 8:9 Also, If you look up the word Baptism in the original text the word means to be fully submerged from my recent dealing with the Catholic church it is my understanding that they just sprinkle water on the forehead that is wrong and will not get you to heaven. Also, You confess your sins to a priest or a father Jesus says confess your sins to the Father in Heaven. And one more thing you pray to Mary. No disrespect but Mary is still dead until Jesus comes back to resurrect the church and she should not be prayer to Jesus is God and he is who you should pray to ask him for forgiveness and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your Sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. God Bless I hope you all find true salvation and stray away from this watered down doctrine.

God Speed!
Patrick, it seems that you really don’t understand what the Catholics teaching want to impart in us all. Well its your opinion i respect it, but you know what even though we believe in different doctrines, still we are all connected through Christ Jesus the Lord (if you believed in Jesus Christ) . The first commandment that Jesus teaches us is to Love God above all, second is to Love our neighbor as we love our self. In the first commandment of course we must Love God above all, (the question do we?) in terms of praying to Mother Mary does not mean that we love her more than our God, definitely not! we pray for her for her intersession cause she is the mother of our Lord Jesus isn’t? and we believed that if we ask her intersession we pray together with her to our God, one more thing Mary is not just an ordinary Woman if you already read the book of revelation i think you know already that she is the Queen of Heaven that is to be Crown with the twelve star, the second one is very clear to understand, dealing with our neighbor i hope you do it with Love and with Love it covers all.

Lastly, all of you, I just want you to know that if you love your neighbor you should RESPECT them who ever he/she is, no matter what whom he/she believe in, all you need to do is to respect them as a sign that you love him/her. and keep always praying him/her, cause God does not sees or judge only on what you have,what you are now, or what your position in life, God only sees a humble heart the simplicity of a heart (like our Mother Mary, no doubt why she was chosen to be the Mother of our savior ) and he will answer your prayer always in accordance to His will. If you believed that He is just, you don’t need to worry, if you are not guilty of the commandments that Jesus taught us.

Great site and interesting discussion. What many seem to forget is that the church on Earth is made up of humans, who by their very nature are subject to fail. There is way too much focus on the missunderstandings and human mistakes commited by individuals of the Catholic Church. You are right with respect of the teachings and principles of the church, and unfortunately many people, including preists and sisters (who are human) are not inspired by the Holy Spirit and make mistakes or are incorrect in their teachings. Apparently many do not feel a necessity to dig deeper and find out what is the truth.

I have been in a healing ministry for almost ten years now, within the Catholic church and am astonished at the amount of fallen away catholics who, because of someone elses opinion, feel hurt by the church. At one point in Liverpool England we had more people in our healing prayer group than were going to mass on sunday. We were surprised to find that more than half were not catholic, but from other denominations in search of healing too. I have found and seen through actual miracles that the Holy Spirit does not distinguish between those He heals.

I leave with one last thought. Our Blessed mother Mary, who was assumed into heaven (just like Elijah and others and therefore is not dead!) in Medjgoria told the children there that God does not make distinctions, man does.

All through time God had done nothing but tell of his Divine Mercy and love of man. Why is it so hard for people to accept it? (by the way Divine Mercy in hebrew implies “new life through forgiveness and healing)

God bless all of you for posting these opinions and “facts” about your own denominations of christianity so that I may learn more about them. I my self am Roman Catholic and I try to do my best to go to church twice a week (once on Wednesday before I attend middle school.) I am not going to state what I think is wrong about your particular believes but I do want to make some things clear about the catholic church. No matter what any one says the catholic church did create the bible ( notice how I didn’t say write). As we all know Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were under the influence of the holy spirt when they wrote the gospels of the new testament I do not argue with this. The catholic church did not write the Bible but they did construct it. There are various books composed in the Bible, but those books were hand pick out of many others of the time if they were saw fit to the teachings of christ. And if the Catholic church is as “evil” as so many say than how can you explain the many miracles that have occurred; the ones that I my self have experienced first hand in my own diocese. That alone is proof enough for me. Catholics do not worship Mary as you also state but we love and honor her and she is an important symbol in the Catholic church maybe it’s because she was born with no original sin she was assumed into heaven and she conceived the son of God himself with the holy spirit and gave her self, will, and soul totally to god… who knows. (pay honor where honor is due) I would go on but I grow tiresome off typing on this small keyboard. If you truly understood the catholic church and her teachings I believe we would all be Catholic, for it is one thing to know but it’s another thing to understand, and she (the church) is truly a beautiful thing. I wish for you not to throw me down for my believes for I do understand everyone perceives the Bible differently and I will not do so to you because you are all my fellow brethren and as such I love you, I may not like you or support your ideals, but I love you none the less. I encourage you to not show hate toward other Christians for we all share one common thing and that is the love for our God. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy spirit Amen. -M.G

From an outsider looking in. The argument between the two different ‘Christian’ factions here seems about as relevant as squabbling over whether Martians are green or blue. In the end, Martians don’t exist and neither does Christ. There is no evidence here, so why bother sending links trying to win each other over? It’s an exercise in futility. Your admirable passion would be better spent focused on real issues and not on chasing after illusions. Peace and may you both find true enlightenment.

Jason do not bother there is no point arguing with a brick wall. We must pray for people like River not condemn them, and for River, I strongly believe that someday you will find the truth in Jesus Christ, follow his way and you will live a happy prosperous life, do not and you shall never be satisfied with your self and what you have been blessed with. I know it is hard for you to understand but then again it was hard for people to understand that the earth was round not flat, that it was possible to put a man on the moon, and so much more. + there is a reason we reset our calendars to AD.

Matthew.
“not just another denomination”
You say this ( which is true) and then go on to say that Catholicism is the largest denomination. Other Catholics also say that the Catholic Church is the only Church and then go on to talk about the other churches. Don’t you thin that this is rather confusing.
Walter

Really? well, u should afraid about it cause after this life you will fade like a dust, and all this things that you work on is just useless,..

but! for me who believed that there is GOD above their who is watching us and ever ready to help us anytime, will definitely not afraid of anything, even to the end of the world cause i know where i will be going after this life.

you should believed!

remember: GOD is a Merciful GOD you have no reason or to feel doubt to approach HIM cause HE is always near to listen, no one can ever fathom His MERCY!

I don’t think that the 1.1 billion Catholics when compared to the 0.94 billion Sunnis can be described as oceans as compared to ponds and lakes. An ocean is way more than a thousand times larger than a lake and there seems to be about a 5% difference between the size of Catholics and Sunnis.

Besides Christianity used to be the smallest religion in the world and that didn’t make it any less (or more) true or significant.

Yes, but there aren’t any where near .94 billion Sunnis who are unified in their teaching. They are all divided, much like protestant Christianity.

The fact that Christianity started with a single person and grew does not take away from the fact that it did grow into 1.1 billion catholics all united in the same Church. And that it remains unified. And it continues to grow. That’s a testament to the fulfillment of (or at least a working towards) the command of Jesus to take his message unto all nations, evangelize and to be “one” as He and the Father are one.

Even if the Sunni denomination were as diverse as all of the post-reformation denominations and even if the Catholic denomination were uniform in belief (neither of which I could say) still I think the ocean/pond metaphor is incorrect. The world’s smallest ocean (Arctic)is a hundred times larger than the world’s largest lake (Lake Superior)… I do not discredit the preeminence of the Roman Catholic denomination in terms of size but oceans verses ponds? Not even if the Roman Catholic were ten times larger than the next largest denomination (which it isn’t by a long shot).

But as a Christian I certainly tip my hat to my eldest brother in the family of Christ with love and admiration.

Second, you are still a bit wrong – if you’d like to get technical. When you compare sizes in terms of individual denominations, the Roman Catholic Church is certainly ten times bigger. The next biggest protestant “denomination” is the Assemblies of God (I think) at 60 million – about 1/20th the size of the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox are at about 1/10th. And from what I understand, Sunnis are very divided as to their interpretation of Islamic Law. So it’s hard to count them as unified in teaching despite their nominal size.

The Catholic Church is unique not only because of its size and unity in teaching, but because it has the leadership mechanism necessary to keep it as such. No other religious groups have any such thing. That’s why all of the others continue to splinter, branch and divide.

.hello to everyone
there are so many non-catholics ignore its faith. becuase they say catholics are
so “idolatry”.but..a very BIG but…catholics does not consider those images as an idol..they consider it as sign or a model that person was also living in earth in their time..without it..we do not know that they are saints who was so called a lowly servant of a God..example of that is Mother Mary..let just STOP debating about our WORLDLY FAITH..to Jesus christ our lord…what i mean..lets just observe and respect its faith..although there are so many religion in this world but still we come up in one God..the Almighty Father..we praise in one God…

stop arguing. Mormons can believe what they wana believe and so can Catholics atheists and whoever. Jesus is merciful and will forgive nonbelievers on judgement day. I will pray for u all when that day comes

thats really awesome that ur interested!
there’s only one type of catholicism. and then there are different religions that came from catholicism; these are the ones that “broke away” a long time ago. if u wanna learn more type “history of protestantism” in google and u’ll find a lot of websites to learn from!

Good day everyone!!! I am marc from philippines,,,..
I am searching for the truth about the genuine religion on earth,,,
To define it ,, there must be evidences that truly God interacted with man on that religion.. THen,, I was really surprised to know about Mother Mary’s apparition like in fatima, accounts are really true and well documented,, .More than that,, What astonished me more are the INCORRUPTIBLES!!..,,this are bodies of the saints that were mystically preserved without any medicine or whatsoever but because of their purities..Look, phaoros in egypt are mummified yet they still decayed especially when exposed to air yet our incorruptible saints are not. You may search this word INCORRUPTIBLES in yahoo and look at their so meek not decayed bodies.. Now,, I truly believe that their is only one true religion on Earth and that is ROMAN CATHOLICISM..

Mr. Evans, your comment on Catholics mainly comprised of Latin American countries and not European countries is not completely accurate. Remeber it’s the Europeans that brought Catholicism to Latin America.. You left out Spain, Italy, France, Poland and a good part of Ireland. England was once Catholic until King Henry wished to divorce his first wife, Catherine. She was from the Spanish monarchy.. Divorce was not permitted and killing her (as he did with a few other wives) would have provoked a war with Spain.. so this is the time when he “created” the Protestant religion that would allow divorce. The Anglican religion, however, is very, very similar to Catholicism.

I am not saying facebook is an accurate measure of membership. I am just saying it is evidence that Catholics are really not as numerous as people think. If there really are 16 million Catholics in America, surely they would have more people on facebook than Mormons. Look at it another way. Go to a Catholic church in America and then go to a Mormon church. You might actually count more Mormons than Catholics. Catholics are a paper tiger. They are really small.

Come back a year later and still arguing i see. Well tom that is a valid point, but i would like to correct you. Yes there are many catholics that don’t practice their faith (most of them young and out of college) but there are many many many practicing catholics in the united states, they are in no way small. Maybe you are in an area were there aren’t many catholics, i don’t know. And there are many protestants that don’t practice their faith as well, not just catholics, maybe it’s just a phase people go through? And I do go to a catholic church and the majority of the time it’s PACKED full of people.

Membership of the Catholic Church is attained though baptism. That means, that I, being a full-blown atheist, am considered a catholic under church membership standards.
What do you think the result would be if on the next census, every country in the world asks what religion one pertains to? I would guess under half the number the church says they have now.

“Membership of the Catholic Church is attained through baptism…” Actually, that’s only a small (though vital) part of the process. A bit more research of very, very basic fact would be in order before you comment on things you clearly know very little about at the moment.

When the Church says that there are 1 billion catholics in the world, they mean that 1 billion people have been baptized. Although true membership is attained in confirmation, the Church considers everyone who’s been baptized a catholic, which is an insult to sociological science.

And, regardless of denomination or religious views, the Lord loves each one of us unconditionally, and we are called to love God and one another. And that’s the important thing. =] so let us stop our continual bickering. =]

Called to love one another? It implies you’ve summed up everything just like follow your heart :) but sadly know because once you ask questions and want to know exactly what that means for you the bible pops up the catechism jesus, human greed, natural disaster suffering etc. God’s love is not that simple. Arguing over what is Christian isn’t going to get you’s anywhere because to begin with you don’t have a fixed defintion of what “Christian” means. The church does have a fixed definition and that is why the mormons don’t fit it. You as a morman think you know what christianity is despite not having anything to do with terms definition. This sense of belonging to words and their meanings is an age old problem because no body likes to be named and described in writing. Imagine that i simply wrote one sentence to explain all that you are; an exact meaning. You could not have any gripes because the criteria fits your description and so it fits said name.

damn i dislike postmodernism :| what id give to be told son your father was a carpenter now you take over.

Kelle – there is a lot of other stuff you could share with such a person. Not only do a lot of people convert to Catholicism, but a lot of really smart, intellectual non-Catholic leaders/evangelicals/protestants end up converting to Catholicism.

I wrote an article for the National Catholic Register on just that topic awhile back. You can read it here.

Why are the catholics created man made doctrines that are not in the bible.?? Why are they teaching that Mary is equal to the Lord.. when Mary herself is just a human that only represents the physical entrance of the human embodiment of God to the world??… Why do catholics worship Mary when it is stated in the bible not to bow down into any creation except to the Lord?? Why??

Chivas – You are bit (very) mixed up on Catholic teaching, sorry. I’m sorry you’ve received such horrible misinformation. Here are a few other posts that might help you out. Then I’d be happy to answer any other questions as I am able.

Why are you so concerned with Christ’s followers? If any work is appreciated from the Father it is to convert the non-believers. Do not judge lest you be judged….BTW The Greek and Roman Catholic Church was the first true Church of Christ. You can follow a straight line from Pope Benedict right to the Pope and Apostle Peter.

This is a very interesting situation, where the Vatican is proclaiming itself to be the one true church of Christ, and that all non-Roman Catholic denominations “suffer from defects” and “are not Churches in the proper sense,” and other religions “are in a gravely deficient situation”; while at the same time they are denying that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary to salvation, teaching Christ-rejecters and non-Catholics can still get to Heaven without any Biblical faith. So which is it? As you can clearly see, the Catholic Church even CONTRADICTS THEMSELVES doctrinally. They can’t even stay on the same page with each other…..

The Catholic Church recognizes all denominations except from the crazy snake charmers and televangelists wanting money, which is in fact a symptom of parting from the Catholic Church. The Church is regulated so that the message is the same as when Christ walked the earth. As a Catholic I have 7 Sacraments. Others 2 at best. All of our sacraments come straight from the New Testament. Early Christians would meet, break bread, talk about Christ’s teachings, Baptize with the Holy Spirit, confess their sins and forgive one another, anoint oil on the head of the dying, to mention a few. Only Catholics practice all 7. That’s why the Church thinks that other sects have some but not all of the truth, yet remain brothers and sisters in Christ. I would feel incomplete without the very same sacraments that Christ taught the 12 Apostles. I want every Christian to experience Christ in His fullness… God Bless

Chivas – God bless ya. You clearly have some grave misunderstandings of Catholic teaching and it doesn’t seem that you are open to actually correcting those misunderstandings. So your comments come off as severely uninformed and ignorant of the very things you are preaching/scolding the Church about. I wish you the best.

Peace be with you!

PS – in the meantime, please do not copy and paste duplicate versions of your same comment on multiple posts on my blog. It is a bit spammy and an abuse of the comment section here. Thank you.

Regarding the thread duplicates, I’m sorry about that I just want to express my thoughts to everyone in the other topic and I resort to copy what I’ve posted… But you can refer to the other thread you can read my replies there..

FYI – I don’t allow links to hate sites or sites that are deliberately setup to spread lies and misinformation (especially so blatantly). That’s why your link was removed. Additionally, you need to use a real email address in order to comment. No anonymous spreading of ignorant websites, please. Thank you.

There you go you admit it’s true! believe me Mary worship is of the pagans because all of you catholics declare that Mary is the queen of heaven which contradicts the scriptures! Wake up man its not too late.

Exactly! catholics do worship Mary. As you can see bowing down into her sculptured image synonymous to a graven image is a sin and God condemns it. Even the catholic bible testifies the truth and it will be clear to you if you just read and by heart remember God’s word because He made His word clear.

we DO NOT worship Mary…. when you worship an object it means your worshipping the object itself, not what it represents. Statues of Mary are used so that humans can visualise the beauty and grace of the mother of our lord Jesus Christ.

And what those graven images represent contradicts the bible. Exodus 20:5 said “You shall not bow down to them or serve them”. The pope bows down to Mary they create a concept of her as a sinless being that contradicts even to your catholic bible. If you read the definition of the word “graven” written in the dictionary it stands for made formed by carving. Those images were carved and you know it by yourself!

You are an outsider looking in. Are you Catholic? So how can you judge what’s in the Bible? Can you see the hearts of men? I tell you this now, when I’m on bended knee in my Church my mind is not concentrated on a statue, it’s miles from that place. So judge all you want, doesn’t make you right? Why do you speak in fake tongues and charm snakes and make people pass out as a charade? Why do calvary chapel ministers ride Harley’s and drive Escalades??? See, it goes both ways …

Jakers – please read some of the other comments so you can educate yourself. Catholics do not worship (in the sense you are accusing) idols or Mary or anything other than God. I’m not sure how anyone could still be confused about something like this. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you have honestly been misinformed. I’m sorry you’ve been given such misinformation. I wrote another post on the confusion about Catholics worshipping Mary here, if you’re interested.

Brother Matthew I’ve read about your page and I know you love God more than anything else in this world I do pray that you’ll grow in faith with Jesus Christ alone and with the authority of His word the bible.

So do you revile the millions of men and women on missionaries in the darkest places in the world trying to spread God’s love? It’s real easy to judge from a recliner with the AC on. The Catholic Church is the largest non-profit Charity in the world. Your on shaky ground there buddy….

Every time I consider starting a blog of my own, I come and read the comment boxes on someone else’s and I realize I could never do it. Matthew, your patience is endless, bottomless, and so admirable. Brother, you have a level of patience that is GIFT-like. I’m not kidding. Wow.

Nicole – you could always start one and just disable the comments! :-) …something I reconsider often on weeks like this… *sigh* lol. But the good comments usually make up for the shenanigans. So it is worth it in the end…and sanctifying in the process.

God bless you and thank you for the kind words! I can assure you my patience is not so endless. :-o

people who troll here are sooo misinformed. to make sure that ur actually CORRECT, try attending church once in a while, maybe ask a priest or a nun. but if your relying on the internet to prove your point, your just making urselves look stupid.
and second, for those idiots out there, do not distort the Bible just to make it sound like your right

1. Jesus was a Jew when he died on the cross and did not know anything about Christianity and had no intent on starting a religion.
2. Jesus did not die for everybody’s sins.
3. Jesus did not intend for the world to exist beyond the generation of his own people. He was a world ender and believed the world would come to an end in his own generations lifetime. There are scriptures to prove this.
4. The intent of Christ was changed by later Christian followers to deny this and other principles that Christ believed in.
5. Christ often refers to the Father as another entity and did not ever say he was divine.
6. Christ also refers to the Son of Man many times and said He would be the judge of the people on earth, not himself. Scriptures were doctored to make people believe it was him, Jesus, that would do the judging.
7. Jesus was a man who probably got his philosophy from John the Baptist who belonged to one of the many groups of Jews who felt differently about God, etc.
8. Jesus often refers to the Pharisees and the Seducees, two Jewish sects that troubled him.
9. Jesus did not come to bring peace to the world but, as he said, to take up the sword and pit brother against brother.
10. Jesus was a rebel himself and left his family, and disagreed with a lot of people. It is why he was killed.
11. The historical Jesus is hardly mentioned by historians and several people have written convincingly that he never existed. I believe he did, but he was not anyone special to the general populous, only to the poor, the blind, the sick and the needy.
12. Jesus did not like rich people and was a champion of the poor. Nothing wrong with that but there is no sin in being rich. The “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” is a testament to that philosophy.
13. Jesus repeats himself so often that it becomes suspicious that he may have been used as a vehicle to get people to join the new monotheistic religion of Christianity.
14. Christ was an apocalyptic Jew who thought the world would end and all judgments made in 20 years of his life.

Meanwhile the beliefs of the Catholic Church (which you are so casually pushing aside) has thousands upon thousands of proofs that have been built upon by members of the Church since its inception over 2000 years ago.

EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion about religion. I for one was raised a Catholic and during my youth and early adulthood, the thought of religion was just a way to try and curb my rebellious ways. The idea of being force fed religion just caused me to apply more resistance.
Now, the love of Christ is so important to me and I am very proud to be a Catholic. I have embraced my faith and have asked God to forgive me for my past. The one hour I spend every week at mass has become my personal salvation. What I have interpreted from my faith is that Jesus was sent to this earth to relay a very simple message. That message is the gift of eternal life while trying to do what is right in the process of helping one another. There are so many ways that help can be provided as just a smile or a kind gesture can surely go a long way.
May God bless all who worship the symbol of the cross and may we all experience peace in our day.

It was Christs’ wish to send his twelve apostles to different parts of the world. These apostles and their disciples preached what they experienced from their master. so the origin of catholic church is divine. it is not a human institution as some of the protestant churches say. the main aim of the council of Trent was to hold up this view. these apostles with their christs experience preached what they heard. experienced and touched by heart. that finally gave shape to the formation of catholic church. so the catholic church is the true church.

Catholic Christianity is not just one of the great religions in this world, but it’s a communion of the Eternal Father and mankind through HIS Son Jesus Christ our Lord in the Holy Spirit our Almighty Advocate.

What’s wrong with becoming an adult here whereby, you are able to determine the difference between fairy stories and reality?
I see ‘guys’ talking about prayer. No one yet has ‘developed’ a prayer which will exonerate them from screwing as many people as possible in order to get into ‘heaven’. I’m terrified of heaven. Imagine having to put up with every god-fearing, dog-loving, ball game supporting clown who ever existed FOREVER?
I can’t wait to go to hell!

You’re terrified of Heaven, sorry to hear that but even hell people fear God, even more so. Now you know He exist & must spend eternity separated from your creator, oh yea & the nashing of teeth. Even the demons believe & shudder! James 2:19.

why is religion such a bitch. I use bitch because sometimes it can leave us feeling like we are the runts of earth left here to rott away from our ancestory, maybe even mythical mother of a dog, who is our higher Monarchy. Do we all need religion to break us up into our seperate groups, to make us feel included in our religion and give the mystery of other religions to our ever knowing, but never understanding concious? Do we need religion to set our ethics right, that we will never be greater then civilization itself or any other of our mankind? Do we need it to stay sane? To keep or label the unknown into something that we do not know ourselves so how can we explain it? We cant. So we need to make up our own version of the events that have an impact on our lives.

Hi Jackie – To answer your question as to whether we really need religion to solve all the problems you’re talking about above. Let’s say that we don’t need religion at all.

What do we need then to solve all the problems of society?
What do we need to stop the growing divorce rate?
What do we need to stop abortion, which is really killing human life, whether we like it or not?
What do we need to stop teenage girls from getting pregnant without getting ready to be emotionally mentally, and financially ready to be single mothers?
What do we need to stop crime?
What do we need to stop corruption?
What do we need to stop moral decay?
etc… etc… etc…

Our society is desperately looking for answers. Please give us resolutions, before you are too quick to destroy religion.

I am my own person. Faith is believing what is not seen or visible to the naked eye. My faith in Jesus Christ is mine and mine alone and if I am wrong, which I do not believe I am, I may have to answer to it after my life in this world ends. The message the Lord Jesus delivered to the world was very simple. Follow the Ten Commandments, help ones in need, and basically, be kind to each other. I firmly believe that if you try to live your life true to this doctrine, no matter what religious faith you may or may not have, you will be rewarded after death with eternal peace. We are all sinners and Christ died for our sins on the cross knowing that no one is perfect. The path has been paved but trying to keep on the paved road is the true test of life. In my opinion, this is what ultimately decides your eternal fate.

Let’s stop taking this too seriously people. Each person and/or group of people are endowed with inalienable rights. These rights should not infringe, harm or interfere with the choices different than those of each seperate group or individual but, instead be given the same environment to florish and thrive in without criticism, inhumanity and exhaustive rebutal(s) relative to what should or should not be considered the right to exist. Let’s just all take a step back, take a deep breath, take a look in the mirror and arrest our own demons or EGO’s.

Read through all these comments, some interesting, some stupid, I have to agree with the lady who said your patients is endless! I personally take great comfort in being a Catholic, I come from a long line of Catholics. We have long been plagued by misunderstandings and I’ve had to explain many things to my non-Catholic friends over the years, so I guess you have to do the same thing here. Bless you for making the effort although I think it falls on deaf ears most of the time, you have to keep trying, if even one person gets it, it will have been worth your time.

According to pewforum.org in 2009 there were 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, a minimum of 87% of whom are Sunni, which means there are 1.36 billion Sunnis in the world.

According to catholicnews.com, in 2010 there were 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, meaning there are around 150 million more Sunnis than Catholics in the world, unless since 2010 150 more people entered the Catholic Church.

Frank – I’ll have to check the numbers. I’ve seen them differently in different places. It also depends on how the terms are defined. And also I believe that the Sunnis are splintered as well within, meaning they are really a group of “denominations.” Could be wrong on that…been awhile since I looked at it!

Does this 1.1 Billion Catholics figure represent all the babies they have sprinkled water on? Does it represent attendance in churches? Membership in parishes? I am going to make an educated guess that it is 40% too high.

6.7 Billion minus 2.2 Billion Christians leave 4.5 Billion who say christianity is wrong. The same can be said for all other religions. ALmost all societies are governed by majority rules making christianity and all religions false. The reason religions were invented is to control societies, different societies exist hence different religions exist. Religions are no more than stories invented by man and governments. Theres a lot of good and wise sayings in these books that should be followed but believing any one story is the same as believing in Santa clause. If someone told me at five years old that there was no Santa we would be fighting. Everybody needs to relax, religigious beliefs are responsible for more suffering than what it’s worth….give it up and live your life and follow some good key points and you will be happy and therefore live in your heaven…..peace.

First, truth is not determined by majority vote. Second, comparing Jesus Christ to the modern day “Santa” story can not be taken seriously. Jesus Christ is probably the most historically well-documented people who have ever lived…and with lots of evidence supporting his story. Finally, your over-simplified view of religion shows an extreme ignorance of how religion, particularly Christianity, has worked and built up so many societies throughout history. Contributing to the well-being and advancement of the world in countless ways. The fact that religion has been abused and malformed so much by power hungry leaders throughout history to achieve their selfish means is a testament to its power, and says little of whether one particular religion is true or not. Time to rethink your position a little more knowledgeably and logically I think.

Even as an adult we are all easily swayed and made to believe what stories we are told. If you grew up in a different society you would believe and protect the stories you were told and you would protect those stories with your life, typically because your parents told you this is the truth.

Right now you are going to fight for christianity. If your in a different society you will fight for Hebrew religion…etc Dependant on how you were raised. Then you will feed these stories to whoever will listen.

The fact your preaching christianity goes against your religion yet you do it to try to gain another believer.

Out of the 2.2 Billion christians only about half of that number still exists. Im included in that number but no longer am I christian, so the actual christians still practicing are rare. Only 1/2% actuallly attend church in any given population.

Religions will eventually die out into very small groups as societies evolve. You guys may never given in to that in fear that every religion plagues there believers with and the fact of belittlement to ones self.

Religion eventually will be seen as barbaric and today I can see that. The torcher people had to go through who had opinions like mine are disgraceful and the catholic religion is the worst people in the world to torcher others with different beliefs just because there parents told them a different story in a different society. The roots of the catholic religion were barbarians and I will not be a part to a group like that. Regardless of all the wisdom the book portrays.

Man existed well before religious stories were ever told and these people believed in witch craft. If you carried a lighter you would be considered a God. This is the nature of humans, they were just as smart as any of us, you tell your kids what you want and typically they follow it, but in a modern world we are developing into something better.

Sean,
You said “The fact your preaching christianity goes against your religion yet you do it to try to gain another believer.”

You really confused me by this statement. Preaching Christianity does not go against being Christian. As a matter of fact, Christ told us to preach Christianity and to baptize people in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Western Civilization existed before Christianity. We can think of the Western Civilization of ancient Rome, for example. I don’t think that the moral code of ancient Rome was something that we would advocate in today’s world. I am sure that throughout history Christians have committed grave sins, but I think Christianity should not be measured by what Christian people do, but Christianity should be measured by what Jesus Christ did and by what He is asking us to do.

If Christianity ever becomes an obsolete religion, I’m pretty sure that not me nor you would want to live in this world, because if you think that the world was/is bad with Christianity, wait and see what it would be without Christianity.

Basically, I can understand from your posts that you may be an Atheist probably? If so, that leaves us with very big questions unanswered. Who made this world? Is that man made too? Who created the Universe? Is that man made too? Who created life? Is that man made too? etc…

Preaching does go against christianity to those not willing to hear it because it makes people angry when they dont want to hear something and puts a bad taste on your religion and that is why the bible your religion is against that. If someone is willing to listen or if they go to church then you can preach and teach as you say, only then is your statement true.

With regards to Mathew saying majority vote is not always the truth….then why does the article above try to use the amount of christions being the majority make it the best religion which is bending the word that this religion is correct and all others are not up and up. Fact is there are 4.5 billion plus that say catholic is wrong, same for every religion

You cant hide behind the good of christianity and forget the bad. The amount of suffering in this world due to religious beiliefs is disgraceful. The reason modern worlds see less and less religion is due to modernization and the reason other religions are growing is because these societies have yet to develop, as they do there religion dies out. unorganized society needs something to hold them together so religion has its place, but in a modern world it is not needed by the majority.

So who made everything, these are big questions that we do not yet understand, but look at what we did not understand 200 years ago. Modern day medicines would be considered witchery, we are merely 200 years young on a billion year old planet leaving things unanswered gives us a mystery to solve.

If my God exists who lives in me through me, my heaven being the good things I do then I will get my answers to those questions. There are untouched societies today that know nothing about religion. They live just fine, trying to push catholic on them or any other form of religion is just wrong unless control is needed.

Sean(Matthew 28:18 – 20) is where Jesus tells us to preach Christianity:
18. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, 20. teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

As far as preaching Christianity to people who do not want it, Jesus also had something to say in (Luke 9:3 – 5):
3. He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. 4. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. 5. And AS FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT WELCOME YOU, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”

So when some Christians continue to preach even when people do not want to listen, it is not the fault of Christ, but it is the fault of those individuals. They are breaking the Christian Law. That is the equivalent of somebody breaking civil law, and when somebody breaks civil law, it does not make the law bad.

As far as science breaking new grounds everyday and discovering more and more things everyday, I am pretty certain that science is not going to ever prove that things can come into existence from NOTHING. If such a thing is really possible then we should be seeing new things coming into existence everyday. Why did things STOP coming into existence from nothing at all? If there is such a precedent, then why it stopped from happening?

Christians seem to believe that God made everything. Science has proven more than what the bible has ever done. The author or authors of the bible said I created everything….is that not conveinant, provide riddles with no answers…take the biggest question we have as man-personkind and say I did it….believe me????

The authors of the bible were very smart, smart like a modern gypsey, they grab their readers, especially when they get you to do something, if the writer gets you to repeat his words then by human nature we evolve to believe them. I have been a christian so I have been on both sides of the coin and know how repeating another mans words can engulf you. This is human nature.

Preaching, …I have always been told this is left to the priests. Your posts may be for priests only, but again the writer is finding ways to push his book onto others. If christianities God was so powerful then we would be already know his teachings he would not need people to push his word around. The author of the bible is no different than a modern man-person who needs advertising to sell his product.

Witches long time ago were able to slow a persons heart rate to nothing, pronounced dead but still alive hence you do not bleed out hence you rise again given the antidote or effects wear off. Today you can’t get away with this type of thing hence no new Gods are created.

The author’s of the bible were not 100% smart, they could not predict that women would come into power because back then it was never questioned. Here is a mistake that lost them billions of followers;

“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35).

“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (1 Timothy 2:11-12).

Any modern intellectual man or women will not fall ill to these words and the old school author’s have lost all respect to their readers. This is one of the many mistakes that the bible makes and it’s priests desperately try to riddle their way around it, but according to the author the book is without mistakes.

You keep asking about how the world was created and say it was god. there is no proof of that in the bible or in science. Just because the author of a christian book says he did it…..what a way to grab your readers. How about this…I created everything…do you believe me. The author assumed with a very educated guess that we will never figure it out because you can’t make something out of nothing, so lets create a character and say he did it. What a perfect story, and it has been for several centuries. Today we are losing that story and will be better off without it.

I dont think anyone has it figured out. I just learned to think independantly as if I grew up without religion, but careful that I have to understand how to live in any given society and to act on instincs. If I am down on life I do something good for someone who deserves help within my means to do so and that makes me feel good. Don’t understand that eithier. People struggle all around the world with joy, happiness, regret, sadness, suffering….regardless of religion. Authors of religion take advantage of all these feelings and basically say I understand I am the way I created all of you so follow my teachings, religion therefore grabs and holds billions of people for whatever type of religion suits there need to mourn, to find peace to there questions however still unanswered but accepted, which is human nature to accept what can’t be answered.

Even God cannot answer where he came from or there would have been some energy before him but then where did that energy come from. Its a question that all authors of any religion know will not be answered so lets create something out of nothing. So we need something to accept. I don’t accept and I don’t have it figured out and neither does a christian god or we would know, so you can put your envy back please.

It would be nice if the world could develop a new religion we could all agree on or social laws. I just can’t follow something I believe was fiction such as Santa Clause. You said Santa cannot be taken seriously so how about using Hitler for example. He convinced Germans to aniliate jewish people….how can any man convince a society to do that, but yet as humans we are convinced by a single man. German or not Hitler could of convinced you or me to do the same if we lived in that era in that society….dont say no because by your religious rules we are all the same. Humans are all the same and convinced with the same tactics that hitler used similiar to what Jesus used. Jesus had good intentions, hitlers intentions were good is his mind as well, and he convinced a society that his intentions or plan was good. Jesus was a good man with good intentions, hitler was not,… as percieved by my society I live in and by my beliefs hitler turned pychotic and was able to turn a society into pychotics. Eithier way men of history can convince people to believe in things that you would think is impossible to do.

Just think how much influence my parents had on me when they said Santa gave you that present and that this is Jesus’s birthday. And Santa did exist just not in a magical form that people make him out to be.

Now why don’t I take my mind back and think for myself independant of story telling. Look at Dr Dyer and his handle on things….not saying he knows it all but at least hes thinking and not closed his mind to a religion.

Jesus was a extrodinary Pychologist by today’s standards but the fairy tales told are not true such as rising from the dead, this is so ridiculous in my opinion and could have been easily faked back then much like magic shows we see today, but back then his tricks would have been completely insane to his followers. I could show people simple card tricks that would have people puzzled for the rest of their lives. Jesus died for his religion so that no one else could figure out he was just a man, just like many today are willing to die for their religion

Dr dyer only for an example of many pycholgists can be considered in-human if they did the things Jesus did and wrote the good riddles he wrote on how to live an exceptional life. There are mistakes with regards to women and other things in the bible due to the era Jesus lived in because of his beliefs of that era, these are clues that he was just a man with a magical show and then died.

If I follow Christianity, then I am following a man’s perception on life….. and 99% of it is correct to me if you want a fullfilling life,……. but I still have my independance. This independance is a scary place because another Hitler may come along and grab my human brain. To me this is why religion was invented, it scares people and puts the fear in them to follow something that makes a society get along. Jesus knew that fear would keep people from asking questions thus never figure him out. And as the story goes Hell was invented as a place you go if you do not follow. His intentions were good for his society but failed in other societies thus failing world peace and no god should fail at anything according to most religions.

My understanding may be fundamental but at least it’s still mine. But this too causes wars. It’s a difficult topic. My theme of world piece and to think independantly wouldn’t work. I say leave it to science, what is understood is real and what is not,…..is not real. If we keep making up stories and thinking independantly then we are going to war regardless because you will never succeed in getting humans to agreee, even Jesus could not accomplish this task and never will no religion will ever be successful in doing so as history relevant to science has proven.

I read the site a little and as soon as I start they say you just have to believe, this is the fundamental flaw with all religions and easy enough for all readers to understand without the mind torture of religion.

You cannot convince everyone without scientific proof, hence you will go to war with 4.5 plus billion people and never convince everyone on this site and around the world that one religion is correct. This site is going to riddle its way around why God exists without proof, but believe me theory. Its the way I was raised, if I was raised differently this would be really offense to me and our families would be fighting all because of fiction. If we all relied on proof there would be nothing to fight about.

I will read in depth but had to write that down to remember to bring my brain back when I’m done.

Sean – please just give it a read. It is so much more profound than what you are saying. Even the issue of what scientific proof CAN even prove is a fundamental question it sounds like you need to research more. I can assure that the philosophy underlying these beliefs is millions of miles deeper than you are giving it credit for. Trust me.

And then there are entirely other issues like the historical evidence for Jesus, the resurrection and beyond that you might find interesting too. We’re not talking about he said, she said stuff here. It’s amazing stuff.

Sean,
It seems to me that you are putting all the blame of wars and human misery on Christ and his teachings, when in reality Christ was very much anti-war and anti-killing. You’re making it sound like if there were no Jesus Christ, the world would be heaven on earth.

What makes people go to war is NOT Christ and what makes people go to war is NOT the teachings of Jesus Christ. People will always go to war regardless of God and Jesus Christ, because the main reasons behind wars are ego, love of power, greed and wealth; and the human race will always suffer from these maladies unless they turn to Jesus Christ who taught against these ills.

gntlmnr,
Indirectly religion is the reason for many wars an no they are not the only reason humans go to war, that was not my intent. On the other side Jesus had good intentions but did not succeed in his beliefs or in what he was trying to do…….. trying to teach 4.5 billion….many without the ability to even understand the riddles even if they tried will never all agree, hence there will be just as much animosity with or without religious beliefs. If we leave things to science then this is the only truth and understanding that we can have. What you dont understand should not be considered god in my opinion

I will be reading into Mathews site in depth, see if that changes my opinion. Need some time, theres a lot there.

I have read into the site and still stand on what I have been saying. Saying there is a god without proof is a premature thing to do. The scare of going to hell is in a lot of us and thats what keeps people in check.

I watched the video with Andrew Pinsent as speaker. In the end he thought a joke would be nice. It involved humor in the form that an advertisement said there is “probably no god” and everyone laughed because you need proof….can’t say probably….well its just as humorous to say god exists. Who gave anyone the right to say a god exists just because we are here. God as religion likes to call this imagination cannot even answer where he would of came from or how he came to be. Yes there are great things in science that we don’t understand, the universe we do not understand but what gives anyone the right to say there is a imagination of a god and then go even further to try to push this notion onto others and scare them that they do not go to imaginary heaven if they do not believe. Yes without religion western civilization would not exist as it is today but thats because people need to be controlled, whether that be with religion or by some other means does not make imaginary god the reason western civilization exists.

Religion looks to get great names on there side to aid in it’s belief but the underlying fact is that know one knows god exists or not. It is a individuals belief that something more knowing than us exists. To take this belief and push it onto others that grew up differently is wrong. Others have their own form of control meaning other societies have their life, let them live it. Let religion be there for people who need it others as you call atheists may not need religion to live a fulfilling life.

Yes the christian bible is full of excellent ways on how to live. But in my educated opinion it is not without it’s mistakes. Its a great way to control people within societies that need help, therefore i’m all for it. People can be crazy. However, going to war and preaching to non listeners is wrong and history can prove that.

What happens to me when I die is my mystery, I will not cloud it with beliefs that hold no ground other than the fact we are here. That is not a right to say something such as a god exists. Or that genetics was invented by god because of the complexity of science that we do not understand.

The story of Jesus is childish beliefs as Einstein put it, and never mind Einstein because I don’t like throwing names around when I have my own opinion, but religion sure loves to throw names around because that’s religion trying to trap minds

The more people they have the more strength they gain.

I am glad to see religion out of schools and government in the western civilized world. There may be ill returns at first but as humans develop we will no longer need religion to tell us what to do or what is right. We will develop new forms of control that don’t follow ancient laws such as putting men above women, and other ancient beliefs that do not align with a modern world

That’s why religions try to adapt because what was written long ago was a mistake. But there are few mistakes in my educated opinion and more good, so again it’s good to have religion but I will not let it close my mind.

Sean,
You are going all over the map with your thinking trying to tell us there is no God. I noticed that you’re finding it very difficult to believe that there is God without anybody creating Him; however, you have no problem believing that there could be a universe and life in it without anybody creating them.

You are contradicting yourself. You’re saying that a universe can exist without a creator, but God cannot exist without a creator. You’re thinking that a thoughtless lifeless entity such as the universe can exist without a creator, but a thoughtful living powerful God cannot exist without a creator.

The fact the universe exists is proof that the universe exists. Imaginary, or manifested form that people have come to say a god created it or many gods in other religions is all a belief and nothing more.

I know a universe exists because it is here. WHAT created the universe is a mystery to all unless you want to manifest something out of nothing.

Stories made by man….. made religions…… and gods evolved from religions……. to say without proof that a god (s) created universe is a manifested thought (guess) at best.

Nobody has ever brought forth scientific proof that Gods existed. To say god exists because we are here is no more than a guess at this point.

What this article is all about is numbers, so again 4.5 billion plus who will argue Christianity’s values speaks volumes as to it’s credentials. These numbers are true for all religions.

What creates something from nothing may be something that came from nothing but the reason as you say “I am all over the map” is because I am guessing and I am glad that I am still guessing and will forever be guessing and I can still live a fullfilling life without the closure of religion that was built by someone elses thoughts (religions)…….and religions are also all over the map with no proof much like my statements on how anything ever came to be.

The arguement’s with religions has always been, fundamentally, who’s religion is more correct. When there all based on beliefs, without proof animosity runs violent. If I was watching from above I would be shaking my head.

But a lot of us and soon to be majority will live and exist without religious beliefs and leave a mystery a mystery as we evolve without religions. I can say this because I see the proof all around us. Religions are fading slowly out of our government’s in the western world

So yes I am still all over the map and I am glad I am and that I have not closed myself to any one religious belief.

I am very pleasantly surprised by your sudden improvement in your logical thinking, the way you’re expressing yourself, and your handle of the English language. I thought that I was much better than you in all these areas, but suddenly you proved to me the total opposite. I am glad I was able to bring that out of you. You see this goes to show that we cannot believe in things that we can only see and feel.

You’re definitely correct that there is absolutely no SCIENTIFIC proof that there is God, but there is also absolutely NO SCIENTIFIC proof that there is NO God. In mathematics you do need to prove one or the other to come to a scientific conclusion. You chose not to believe in God until there is an absolute SCIENTIFIC proof, and I chose to believe until SCIENCE proves the opposite. So at this point it is only your word against my word.

I have a proof that God exists, because I feel his existence everyday in my own life. In life there is something called “sight” that enables us to see physical things, but there is also something that is called “insight” that enables us to see non-physical things.

I quote you “You’re definitely correct that there is absolutely no SCIENTIFIC proof that there is God, but there is also absolutely NO SCIENTIFIC proof that there is NO God.” This statement is the fundamental carrot that all religions begin with and then they go on to say we are here so that’s proof. What we manifest into a god cannot be considered correct because of a feeling or man made stories, unless you individually choose to to do so, which is a common typical mistake to……..assume.

The western world just came out of……..by majority, within the past 100 years to accept skin color. It was a social acceptance to slave people because of there skin color. We evolved from cults that said skin color made a person different. The group (cult) that Andrew Pinsent was talking to laughed at Atheists like a cult would do because their belief in a manifested god is different than an Athiest’s.

I don’t argue that there is a god or not, i’m saying there is no proof of this manifested power. I’m not trying to prove one way or the other. I am saying its wrong to assume. Its wrong to assume something made the universe just because it’s here. That is a mystery, suggestions should be welcome, but manifesting something into a cult (religion) is wrong, and I can say that with all truthfullness within me.

When I hold a door open for someone, I get a good feeling that comes over me. Is that manifested god touching me? Is he in me? OR is it because if I can do it someone else may do it for me when I need the help. Maybe that’s the feeling that comes over me. An instinct that if I need help I may get it, because I was willing to do it as well, which tells me, instinctively, I will be OK. But again, I don’t know for sure so I’m not going to assume and push my notions onto someone else. I would like to think a greater power exists, but I don’t know.

If you grew up with parents in a different society with a different religion, how would you ever develop into the religion you preach now. Would you walk home to all your family members and tell them “hey” (christians for example) said some guy died for us on a cross and rose again wrote a book and told us how to live with different rules than the religion you brought me up with. How do you think that would go for you a hundred years ago???

Fundamentally this is what takes place. Any given religion is a belief and nothing more without proof and you can never convince the majority of society that a manifested god exists without proof. Doesn’t matter if I prove he doesn’t.

In today’s western world, now that society can voice an opinion without becoming crucified or torchered for their opinions, religions will lose their hold without this fear and a new majority society will evolve and religious beliefs will become laughable, to be blunt, that it ever developed so far, just as our previous beliefs in gays, skin color,race, women, etc, etc, etc

Of course the scare of going to hell or not going to heaven is still young and instilled in a lot of my generation but this will die off soon as well and people as a society will no longer fear religion and thus will not be controlled by it, unless they choose to do so. These people will be of small groups in the future and no longer will be accepted by a new society in my opinion. At least that is the trend I am seeing now so it’s an educated opinion.

Your insight is your own, it is not the way for many of us who disagree that it can be absolutely that, that you believe. Religion is a fading cult, whether we need it or not.

By the way, I am glad that you decided to communicate with the blog with a more intelligent and sincere manner and that you decided to quit playing “an old game” that has been played many times before by others by pretending to be stupid.

Sean, whether you accept it or not, Atheism is a religion in itself, and there is a considerable amount of assumptions in Atheism as well, and Atheists are definitely preaching it and imposing it on people who don’t want to hear it and on people who don’t want to have anything to do with it.

You’re always coming to the wrong conclusions by making assumptions yourself. The notion that skin color and slavery are synonymous is not a Christian Western Civilization notion, but it is strictly an American notion that has no roots in the teachings of Jesus Christ. You’re always failing to make a distinction between human behavior and the teachings of Jesus Christ. I am not even sure that you were a Christian previously, because you seem to have a total lack of understanding of Jesus Christ, his personality, and his teachings. I would suggest to you to read the four Gospels in the New Testament, which are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that will definitely give you a clearer idea of who Jesus Christ is.

You mentioned before that Einstein thinks that Christianity is a childish belief. Never mind Einstein, because with all due respect to his intellect, he certainly was an expert on many disciplines in life, but that certainly doesn’t make him an expert on ALL disciplines in life.

You also mentioned something about putting men above women. I think you’re definitely misinterpreting Saint Paul. Saint Paul isn’t saying that men are superior to women, but in a nation not all people can be leaders at the same time; there has to be one leader at a time in order for society to function properly, otherwise, there would be total chaos. In the same way there cannot be two leaders at the same time in a house under the same roof, because there will be chaos as well; hence, Saint Paul was telling women to submit to their husbands, but that submission is NOT meant to be an unconditional submission. The man of the house has to meet a certain Christian standard to allow him to be the leader of the house, and Saint Paul is definitely not suggesting that a violent, abusive, drunkard, womanizer, loser of a man to be the head of the house here, and Saint Paul is definitely not suggesting that a woman must submit to such a man. So things have to be taken in the correct context to make sense. The subject of homosexuality is a gray area, but the Catholic Church has a very compassionate standing on the issue in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. May be you should take a copy of that book and look at what the Catholic Church has to say about the subject.

I don’t want to write a whole newspaper now. I will write that much for now. But your suggestion that we should believe in only what science reveals to us makes us slaves of science and scientists, and doesn’t give us a way to think and have our own vision in life, and I don’t think it is a healthy way to live. As a final note, I would not be too proud of the direction that the western civilization is taking right now, because it is very evident our problems are growing exponentially day by day. Look at the divorce rate; look at the growing corruption level, look at crime, look at society that is disintegrating day by day, etc…. May be it is just a coincidence that the further away we move from God, the more problems we are having. So it might be just a coincidence, but again it may not be just a coincidence. Who is to say?

Anyway to put perpective on these posts, it is a BIG topic and worth the reads and the writing in my opinion. Im not a writer so I don’t always come across “clear as a bell”

Your point on Atheism is true in my opinion I don’t agree with groups or cults of any kind. I refer to myself as something I predict a christian would call me and know little about other groups. I’d call myself a born again christian or orphan maybe, I really don’t care. Orphan better suited since I know nothing of other groups. My ignorance is due to frustration of stupidity the human race brings to these sort of groups so I choose not to get involved and feel protected by a new society in that I don’t have to learn about them. However, my writings involve the push of religion still trying to be pushed on an evolving society. My analogy to this is “smoking for example” use to be socially acceptable to smoke anywhere, now if your smoke blows in my face, your darn right I socially have the right to tell you to go somewhere else and smoke where your not bothering others.

My notion of slavery being synonymous with religion is correct in my opinion, but not as you directly relate them. My relationship is pointing to how stupid the human race is, that includes me, so I try to be as fact orientated as possible. For example, Hitler convincing you and me to kill a race, I say you and me because we are all the same regardless of what society Hitler took control over. Women socially inadequate to a man not long ago was socially acceptable, skin color, considered not a real human…socially acceptable. Humans are stupid as history tells and in my opinion we have also been socially convinced that a imaginary god exists and a man rised up from the dead.

As I said before, Christianity should be followed from a government stand point to making modern laws but not as a religious cult. I follow a lot of the great teachings. But there are a few teachings that are no longer socially acceptable.

I am not a priest as far as Christianity goes but I was a christian follower in the past. There are different levels of christianity in my opinion, not everybody knows the same about such a vast book of knowledge. Whether your sure I was Christian …I believe would be a mute point. I have been convinced who Jesus Christ is because I am human and as I said stupid. Jesus Christ to me now from an intellectual point of view was a great man with a great ability to write. A gypsey, con, pychologist, writer, magician and well devoted individual with good intentions who wrote in an era that had his teachings without a flaw. Socially the writings have errors in today’s society in my opinion.

I don’t agree with your arguement on women submitting to a man as a leader regardless if it is unconditional. That perception is still chauvanistic. Not drunken, just chauvanistic. Telling women they can’t preach in church and to listen to their christian husband is now socially wrong. Women equally can lead as a man can, however used to be socially acceptable that a man do it, so that is how Jesus wrote it. If you plan to be a Christian you have to own that because no current jury is going to buy your riddle to get out of what has been clearly written. This is a fact to me not an arguement, unless you want…choose to be blind. I dont agree eithier that there has to be one leader. Ive heard the whole speal you have to listen to be a good leader. That can be man or women. My wife and I do everthing together and decide on everything together and neither one of us is perfect. In fact she lets me know when I can be the boss :) I see governments making decisions now as a group nationally, there is no one leader. If Jesus was a perfect writer overlooking the other writers he would have used the word spouse not Women and Husband.

I don’t know how you can relate science to slavery. The truth is the truth, has nothing to do with being a slave to truth. It is what it is.

A healthy way to live would be to live as what Christianity has taught in my opinion, but being a slave to an imaginary hell, heaven or an imaginary god as a backbone to the great teachings is now a social flaw. If Christianity continues to use this as their backbone they will lose social acceptance in my opinion.

Relating, problems of today vs yesterday because of religions is a ridiculous statistic to try to metamorphasize on. Religion has indirectly caused just as many problems. Ive heard the whole speal before on losing religion is a source of our problems. We have always had problems. There are races that live without Christianity that have less problems than Western society.

My brain doesn’t even have the understanding of how text can fly through the air from one cell phone to the other yet some software engineer would easily know. To me that’s impossible because I don’t understand. Again look at where we were just 100 years ago and look at how far we have progressed, imagine in 1000 years from now what we will know. So maybe future humans will know, but one thing I cannot see answered is where a religious god comes from, there always has to be something before something can exist. Its a good question but no religion will ever have the answer….religion does not have an answer, so why put science on the table when religion has no answer either. I’m not falling for “you have to believe”, that could have been written by a man.

Yes nice chatting, I guess were both just trying to get our points across but that is the problem in societies. The argument’s become so controversial with so much animosity that we (society) go to war. Christianity would like it if we could all agree, all 6.5 billion but that is unrealistic hence there will be religious wars for centuries to come. Same goes for all religions. However, religion does do a lot of good, it keeps people sane, but finding world peace with religions, likely will never happen. If I get old and tired maybe I will need religion just because my human brain needs it but I doubt it. I have too many relevant questions and points I have made and will bring these up within myself before I succumb to any religion. I do enjoy the chat, I wish societies could do the same.

Guys, Muslims count as one body and not seperate- as the core belief of Islam is the same Sunni or Shia- the fact there is Only One God and that Muhammad (May Gods peace and blessing be upon him) is his messenger- just like Abraham, Jesus Christ, Moses (May God’s pace be upon them). And that means there are 1.8 billion worldwide, making up 23.6% of the Worlds population (Muslims). Remember Islam is unity and the beliefs are the same throughout the whole faith.

If you want to look at it this way, then there is really no difference between Catholics and Protestants, because we all believe in the Holy Trinity, which is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, all three of them being one and only one God; and we all believe in the same bible.

Sean – You come across as a true chameleon that holds a vendetta against Jesus Christ, and the fact that you’re always trying to draw analogies between Jesus and Hitler clearly demonstrates that, and the fact that you use terms like gypsy, con, and magician to describe Jesus also clearly demonstrates that. It is extremely repelling to put the names of Jesus and Hitler in the same sentence, let alone drawing analogies between them. You have the right not to believe in the miracles performed by Jesus Christ, but it is obscene to describe Jesus with these adjectives. You cannot expect the world to perceive things from your own point of view. These methods that you’re using to describe Jesus are clearly not methods used by somebody that simply disagrees with Jesus, but they are methods used by somebody that holds deep hatred towards Jesus Christ. My suggestion to you is to get rid of your grudge and to read the bible with an open mind, and that will tell you a lot more about who Jesus Christ is; and most importantly, quit judging Christ and Christianity by the behavior of the Western civilization. Jesus Christ does not even belong to the Western civilization. Jesus Christ is a Jew that has very deep Middle Eastern Jewish roots, and Christianity never ever existed solely in the Western civilization.

You do not understand my analogy between Jesus and Hitler. It is the fact history has proved that society can be controlled by people. They do not have to be a god in order for people to follow them. As your religion states everyone is the same. Therefore you could have been controlled by Jesus or Hitler depending on the society you grew up in and the era you belong to. Because you were taught about Jesus is why you have such a hard time understanding my points on how the human race evolves and what we are currently evolving into. Instead of facing my comments with an open mind you choose to hide behind riddles and call me names that obscure my points. My points are factual based on history mostly. You can call me a chameleon but my attack is not on Jesus it is on on religions and the human race and how religions have come to play such a big part in our society. Jesus, and others are remembered historically, but they are just men not gods. At least my previous posts find clues to such a statement other than empty beliefs based on intuition and feeling.

If anything it would be wise to read more in depth as to what I am saying, as It may be the best understanding of religions and history you can get if you want christianity to survive.

Religions are a dying cult, and current history can prove that. The only reason any belief develops strength is with numbers in society. That’s what this blog is about. It tries to suggest that because catholics have more believers than we should all follow them. This is where religion develops it’s strength. Right now the powers are shifting and less and less people are believing in religions because we are becoming more civilized and less likely to be conned by stories in an era full of stupid people. I said stupid in my last posts because I am a lazy writer. To elaborate as I said before the human race can be made or swayed to believe in anything including Hitler, I’ll bring back Santa Clause, Jesus, and I’ll add in Allah, etc, etc, etc…….and you still won’t understand my point because your blinders are on with Jesus in this category as your society has built your faith so strong you will not see any other point unless you had grown up under a different culture or society. I opened my mind to the fact I could have grown up under any culture so I take a step back look down on everything and make decisions from an open point of view. Not because I was raised that way or chose to follow a majority.

As I said before like it or not and this is not a form of belittlement, however you will take it that way, I am assuming from your replies……..Religions will lose all their powers in the near future as society develops….why because of numbers, that’s why religions need believers, without them they die off because they become socially unacceptable and that is what is happening in our schools and government in the western world. As we develop it’s in acceptance so will others because of numbers. This is not my attack this is what is happening. Why is it happening? I believe as I said the stories are crap to put it bluntly, there underlying backbone to magic in an era where magic was not understood found an abundance of believers who carried this on to their children. There are no more magic tricks that anyone will fall for and it’s not being taught in our schools so religion will lose it’s social power over the majority in a matter of time. That is my educated belief. I guess it’s not a fact yet but as history tells it’s pretty close.

People in their nature and society in its nature need a LEADER. Society would NEVER be able to function without leadership; and the nature of that leadership is what determines whether people are controlled or not. So your point of drawing analogies between Jesus Christ and Hitler is truly worthless, because there is nothing to compare between the styles and the objectives of their leaderships. The objectives of their leaderships have NOTHING in common. Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton were leaders and Saddam Hussein was a leader as well, and I would never ever draw analogies between their leaderships, because each individual had a completely different agenda. People will always need a leader, and any society will always need a leader. The fact that the Western Civilization is getting away from God is not simply happening without leadership. Getting away from God in the Western Civilization is not happening because all of a sudden individuals are waking up one morning and discovering on their own that there is no God. It is happening because there is a leadership with an agenda whose objective is to get away from God. Nowadays, leaders have much more powerful means to control people, because we have a very powerful media that reaches large masses of people. That media has an Atheist agenda, and they are succeeding in brainwashing loads of people every day. There is also a tremendous amount of highly advanced psychology that is being used in the process of brainwashing people.
You’re making some huge assumptions yourself and you’re building your whole philosophy of life on pure assumptions. There is absolutely NO PROOF, scientific or otherwise, that tells us that the miracles performed by Jesus Christ were pure magic and false. If you don’t believe them, then that is your personal problem. No other human being was even able to replicate any of his miracles. One would believe that if Jesus was using pure magic to perform his miracles, then we should have plenty of people being able to replicate at least some of his miracles, because one would have to suppose that the art of magic should have progressed tremendously in the process of 2000+ years. Besides, I completely fail to understand why we are ONLY focusing on the miracles of Jesus Christ himself, and we never accuse any of the other Prophets in the Old Testament of being gypsies, cons, and magicians, since we have some pretty important miracles performed by the Prophet Moses, for example. Why is it that we never try to draw analogies between the Prophet Moses and Hitler, and why we never accuse the Prophet Moses of being a gypsy, a con, and a magician?
Another huge assumption you’re making is that you are supposing that I was always a Christian man, when in reality I have been all over the map with my beliefs throughout my life. Why are you thinking that the number of people determines whether a religion is powerful or not? Please remember that Christianity started with ONLY twelve men who were all executed because of what they believed in. What makes you think that these people would offer their lives to defend a pure lie? Why don’t you remember the persecutions and the attempts of extermination of the early Christians in the first century that were performed by the Jews of that time and by the Atheist Romans? Why don’t you remember the persecutions and the attempts of exterminations of the Christians today in the Middle East? Why don’t you remember the persecutions of the Christians today all over the world?

I quote you “People in their nature and society in its nature need a LEADER. Society would NEVER be able to function without leadership; and the nature of that leadership is what determines whether people are controlled or not.” …………….. Now you are starting to understand one of my main points. HOWEVER, I don’t believe a modern society needs a leader. We are now so diversified it’s not needed.

Again, you keep arguing how different Hitler is to Jesus and then slapping me for putting them in the same sentence when this is my primary point. The fact that you and I could have been lead by one extreme to the other is proof in my opinion that Jesus did not have to be a god to get so many believers. In fact it is easier to get people to believe in good than evil. The fact Hitler had a society believing in evil is a greater con that a society has ever fallen for.

The teachings of Christianity is good as I said but to survive in our current society it needs to change a little to be brought up to our evolving society or it will eventually lose it’s influence.

When I was young I was forced to go to church and forced by my parents to believe in Jesus. Further to that I was forced to go to school where more influencial people shoved Jesus at me. I say shoved because if I asked a difficult question I was scolded. I remember asking my Dad on the way home from church, “How do we know Jesus wasn’t just a man” He stopped abruptly pulled the car over to the shoulder and said “It’s so well documented the miracles he performed and the fact that he died and came back to life is something only god could do.” At that moment my belief was sealed I preached Christianity throughout the long part of my life. My fate was sealed because of my society and the influencial people in it. It wasnt until high school that a teacher said “hey I’m not sure if teaching you the Catholic religion is right as there are over 30 other religions in the world, in fact we don’t have any factual proof that religions are even factual, this was coming from a catholic teacher who opened his viewpoint. Hence the teacher was fired because in that era he was not aloud to say such a thing against Christianity. Hence the influence that our government and society used to stand on. Strike fear into people like losing their job unless you believe.

These are the type of strongholds Christianity had on me as a child, as an adolecent. My society no longer has these types of strongholds, in fact it is now becoming socially un-acceptable to even mention your religion because of the crap I used to have to live through. I realize the Christianity teachings are not the problem, it is the believers and the backbone stories behind Christianity.

You tell an average teenager today that a guy died on a cross and rose again and that teenager is going to laugh and stay as far away from Christianity as possible. Majority speaking this is the path religion is following and religions are in a real pickle because if they admit that they need to change anything then they admit to a flaw and religions have no flaws by their own code.

Now, again I am not attacking Christianity, it’s my life experience. If I was brought up with Allah and promised many virgins in my afterlife if I blow myself up then I would have been that much worse off than being forced to believe in Christianity. Imagine a society believing in afterlife virgins, this is how easily controlled and influenced by leaders. Do you still want to be lead???? I don’t.

Even today my family has a hard time with my onlook of the human race and societies, so much so that they don’t act the same around me. Imagine the influence others have on them to believe and not ever have the chance to explore their own viewpoints in fear of upsetting their loved ones.

Thank goodness my society is evolving and my children have a choice to rely on mysteries and facts. Now they can have discussions at work instead of saying “Oh god did that, science will never explain it” If you mention a religion at work you now socially instill fear on people because you have a belief and if they try to say something they know they will belittle you and then hence start a grudge.

Anyway hope you don’t relate everything back to your religion, it’s the same thing people go through for all religions some being more extreme than others.

Sean – I like how you ended up saying “Anyway hope you don’t relate everything back to your religion”. In other words, you’re trying to tell me not to take it personally. Yes right…. You draw analogies between Christ and Hitler and you accuse Christ of being a gypsy, a con, a magician, and I don’t know what else… And you go on and on and on about how the Christian Western Civilization was so brutal, and then you ask me not to take it personally. Now that’s truly beautiful.

Where does it say that God cannot and should not be a leader and that God is not allowed to have influence on people and societies?

Whether it is modern or retarded, a society needs leadership. May be you should reexamine your understanding of the term leadership.

Where did you ever hear that religion in not supposed to be flexible and to evolve with an evolving society? Look at what (Matthew 18:18) is saying: Here Jesus is talking to his disciples and telling them “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Can it be spelled out more clearly that a true religion is supposed to evolve as society evolves?

I am so sorry that you had such a traumatic experience in your childhood that was caused by people who have no idea how to teach Christianity. You are viewing Christianity through some truly dark sunglasses that are filtering out all the beauty of the love and compassion of Christ and the love and compassion of true Christianity. Sean, I am being very sincere by telling you that you have an extremely distorted understanding of Christ and Christianity.

You mention “My society no longer has these types of strongholds, in fact it is now becoming socially un-acceptable to even mention your religion”
Sean is this truly the ideal society that you are looking forward to live in where it is unacceptable to even mention “my religion”?

Sean, I truly have no idea where you live in the world, and what kind of society you’re living in, but all the things that you are telling me about your experience with Christians and Christianity sound very foreign to me. Are you sure you’re not living in a European society in the Middle Ages?

The problem in your first paragraph is that we have the same religion as a life reference, so all hope of becoming too personal with you is lost I guess. From your post I see you are getting frustrated and have distorted facts an educated opinions with religous beliefs. Your frustration is becoming personal, I am not going after you as an individual. Indirectly your religion is now causing a social war because you choose to keep saying it’s OK to preach. Socially it is not OK to preach and these are the social laws you will have to deal with in the future.

Your second paragraph, “where does it say that God cannot be a leader ….etc etc. First of all your assuming there is a God, societies are not falling for that so how is your religion going to adapt to that??? Second it is said in our schools

Your third paragraph, religion is not flexible…..I don’t understand the paragraph, doesn’t have anything to do with evolution. The fact that the bible plays on so many misunderstood riddles should have been a clue to the all knowing that humans are going to screw this up and fight about it.

Your fourth paragraph. I am not glad that you have taken a form to belittle my upbringing. As I stated before I do not see christianity through dark sunglasses, I respect most of it. Much like you are doing to me now is what PEOPLE with christian beliefs do to others with other opinions. Even if my opinions are facts and educated it doesnt matter, if I don’t succumb to your belief, then I am an outcast. I realize they may be belittling and you have your human right to get frustrated, hence here we go with the religious crap again. This is excatly why its not aloud in our workplace schools and now society as a majority. Its an infestation of arguements.

Your fifth paragraph, yes my society hopefully will not carry religion into it. Stick to the thought of a mystery and fact based information. There will be other battles but this will be a leap forward in a good direction. We are heading into an era where we are losing religions, other undeveloped socities still survive on religious beliefs, but in the western world we no longer need it and we no longer need leadership as you describe it. There are social laws but no one person need step up to the plate to rule a modern society. Yes, I like a society without religion. Christian orientated guidlines yes, but as a religion no. Religious beliefs are without fact and therefore always subject to humiliation in someones faith which causes fights. All knowing Jesus should have realized that but he was a man and not perfect but had good intentions.

Your final paragraph again purposely belittling. It’s a human reaction and as the man Jesus said you know not what you do so I dont take offence.

On a final personal note you need to socially understand what I am saying. You keep saying people have to be lead. In old society I agree and your saying to yourself what Jesus said and that’s why he did what he did.

Ok not final yet, lets go to the name calls I did. Magician, David Copperfield, much more advanced then Jesus’s tricks. When a magician plans an act he is well prepared and he needs help from others to aid his deceptions. Con, this sounds bad but leaders are good cons because they can make people believe anything. Hitler proved that. Jesus’s con was much easier as people prefer good vs evil cons A gypsey because gypsey can percieve people’s thoghts and relate almost anything that is said to relate to their life experience and others see that as truly amazing. A writer, that’s obvious. He was highly intellectual lets say. His final slam dunk is to die for his belief so that know one could challenge him as a man. People even today die for their beliefs. The current most common deaths are for Allah who gives away virgins. People like you and I believe that because we were raised that way. You still can’t get that???
If you do then you might realize your religion questionable and if you don’t I have still made my point or I should say that history has made it’s point that all beliefs are questionable. You cant seem to understand why I and others many have questions that your religion can only answer that you should believe. BASED on WHAT. Ive seen enough to know that anyone could have conned you into what you believe. If you were not, good for you but I don’t know you, so my educated opinion is valid based on history and how humans are so easily tricked and controlled.

Sean – I was not trying to belittle you. I was just repeating what you related to me about your childhood experience. It must have been really traumatic, because I don’t know if you noticed yourself throughout this debate. You don’t even know who you are or what you are. One time you say you are an Atheist, then you change your mind and you say that you are not an Atheist; then you say that you are a Born Again Christian, then you say that you are Catholic, then you say you are an orphan, etc… etc…

It seems to me that you are very confused, but there is one thing you have constant in you and that is you truly dislike Christ and Christianity. So I am truly sorry. I am not trying to belittle you at all, but I am trying to understand who you are, but you seem to be confused and you’re confusing me with you; since you’re thinking that this discussion is getting personal for both of us, then I think we should quit, because I am not really fond of getting into a debate that is full of personal attacks.

As a final note, it doesn’t matter at all whether you were Christian at any point in your life or you were never Christian. That should never give you the right to describe Jesus Christ with the methods you were describing him, because even if you were Christian, it would be still extremely offensive to do so.

As you stated and I quote you. “Another huge assumption you’re making is that you are supposing that I was always a Christian man, when in reality I have been all over the map with my beliefs throughout my life” Do you know who you are???

Your personal attack of belittlement is getting more intellectual in your first paragraph. I like that because at least it’s not anger so that is a step forward for you. But it is still off topic, try challeging my points instead, unless you cant, hence failure leads down this road of belittlement. I told you before I don’t care how anyone percieves me, I’ll stick with Society as it changes, if I move to another society I will have to adapt. Eithier way, I am happy and living a fullfilled life without religion. However, my childhood was traumatic because of the way Christianity was pushed onto me, because of people, not because of Christianity. You keep confusing the good I have for christianity with the people and it’s backbone belief of magic. Also, a belief in God is not factual. I’ll say it again because you keep confusing me with the two points. I have a disrespect for beliefs that are not factual and a belief in magic shows that Jesus did. However, he was a good man with good intentions to me. His teachings are great in my opinion.

If you truly read into my posts you would understand that me educated points of view based on history are not attacks on the great teachings of Christianity. There are the human interpretations and assumptions humans have made and the fact that they fell for the con that a man said he was a son of a god. That part has been blown up out of proportion and modern society is not going to follow something so ridiculous.

As I said before, if people can fall for the con that Hitler played on society, then people can surely fall for the plausible con that Jesus was a son of a God. So I have every right to question it, regardless if you or Christianity find it offensive. In a modern society I have every right to question it, unlike my previous era. I can relate this to smoking again as a similiar analogy, so that everyone understands here.

Previous era’s would not allow me to tell you to go smoke outside, now it is socially acceptable to tell you to blow your smoke outside where it does not affect me. In fact it is a bi-law now. Same will happen to religious believers because of the underlying backbone of magic and beliefs without fact.

This article is all about social acceptance and numbers. Modern society will no longer contribute to the growth of religions by majority. Undeveloped socities will, because they still by majority support beliefs over facts, but that will change too, given time.

Sean,
I said “I have been all over the map with my beliefs throughout my LIFE”, but you have been all over the map with your beliefs throughout our debate that lasted only very few days.
Sean, believe me, you have the ABSOLUTE RIGHT to believe in ANYTHING you want to. You can believe that Jesus Christ is a jerk and a dog if you want to, but when you talk about Jesus Christ in public, especially in a Catholic blog, where one has to expect that there are Christians reading it, you HAVE TO BE POLITE and RESPECT the feelings of your readers.
I can give you a small analogy that might clear it up a little bit for you. I may not agree with the gay lifestyle, and I have the right not to agree with it, but when I write something about the subject and especially when I know that there are gays that are going to be reading it, I definitely would not use the term “faggot” to describe a gay man, because that would be inflammatory and it is going to create bitter feelings against me and resentment from gay people, and it is going to create bitter arguments.
You cannot expect all people to see things from your own point of view. Just the fact that you think it is stupid to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you cannot expect the whole world to see it that way. There are some pretty intelligent intellectuals who believe in that resurrection and in all the other miracles that were performed by Jesus Christ. In a modern society and especially in a true democracy, you have to leave room for these people to express their feelings and their beliefs without harassing them, and you should never try to IMPOSE your point of view on them and accuse them of being stupid.
During our debate, I tried to tell you several times that the way you’re describing Jesus Christ is offensive to me, but you insisted on continuing to describe him that way totally disregarding my feelings. That got me very upset, and that’s why I started lashing back at you, and I sensed that I hurt your feelings. I am truly sorry for doing that. I don’t like to do that to people, but I felt that you were forcing me to do it, because you did not care about hurting my own feelings.
So as a conclusion, you definitely have the right to believe in anything you want to, but you should always try to respect other people’s feelings when you are communicating with them, and you should not expect people to see things from your point of view.
Finally, I want to apologize again for hurting your feelings, because I did not enjoy doing that at all, and it bothered me personally when I did it.

I have not been all over the map with my belief in a few days. As I said, I called myself what I assumed a christian would call me. I dont have a name for what you want to describe me as. I already corrected this when you first confronted my impairment. Really does not matter to me. The fact you bring it up is a slash at credibility I guess. These are not beliefs, so I have not been all over the map with these beliefs as you call them. I don’t belong to a religion…… so I assumed an identity, it was not a belief as I or you call it.

I never never said Jesus was a jerk or a dog. What is wrong with a dog anyway? Jesus to me was a highly intelectual human man to me. I believe he played a con for the better of humanity in his era. I’m proud of him.

Christians can do what they want with my writings. My points are factual based. If anything Christian readers should take it and figure out how to answer these questions before they lose influence on modern society, because that is what is clearly happening.

If you have doubt or disrespect for someone, then you should say to yopurself, what would Jesus do. Then you cant go wrong. He would clearly not take belittling shots or credibility shots, I know he would never get offended by any remark and neither should a Christian.

When I was a Christian believer I would just look at my remarks and look for answers to them. Ask a priest if I had to. Unless that person got physical nothing bothered me. Some of my remarks have never been answered without a riddle attached so here I am unanswered, so this is my current thought process and a good read even if your Christian.

Gays are obviously different, it’s not a choice for them who they are attracted to. Theres too many like this to be a choice thing that can be said to be wrong. Socially we accept them now doesnt make it wrong or right. Everything we do including religion falls, or succumbs to a society and it’s belief. Your personal beliefs really have to align with whatever society you live in in order to get rid of life robbing hatred, and disrespect of a majority society. You will always lose that battle or live miserablly a good part of your life if you can’t let go. I find gays very intriguing.

I enjoy this blog, regardless of you, I am not offended. Jesus taught me that. I also learned a lot from Dr Dwyer, his teachings are well worth the read if you open your mind, you can always go back to Jesus and compare. They are both amazing life altering reads.

When I say society and how Hitler made society believe in evil…..do you not think that there was very highly intellectual people. I’ll tell you right now that there was and they were just as smart as any other believer of a con.

You can’t say because smart people believe in Jesus that thats the way it is. Anybody can be conned.

David Copperfield in my opinion created miracles. Are you going to tell me it was a trick or a miracle. If you say trick then I say Jesus did a trick too.

Sorry about stupid…as I said I’m lazy writer and it sounded good at the time. I regret it now. People are easily tricked as history has proven is what I am getting at.

I respect Jesus, where we clash is my perception that he was a man, not a son of a God.

I don’t feel it’s wrong to say it to a Christian. To not be aloud to say it for centuries has been wrong and inforced with violence by people. Thats not what Jesus or a true Christian would do but thats whats been happening.

I dont expect people to see my point. Ive seen faiths so strong that people are blowing themselves up. Some things are not reachable assuming my point is even right. I am human, so I am subject to error, so I don’t take anything I say too serious. It’s just a good chat to me.

Take a look on “You Tube” at Dr Dyer’s message to us. He talks about God and Jesus as well but has a better outlook in my opinion. Not saying hes right but his message sure is a good one. He’s not a part to any group hes just throwing out an idea and believes the bible was misinterpreted with all the magic stuff we believe in. His main point is that Jesus was speaking to all of us as we are all God. This debate is God, our thoughts on this debate are God, we are all one. Just a good outlook, the best one i’ve heard of and it’s not a group, as he states groups have a tendency to develop lies or misinterpret.

I don’t think anyone will fault us on our books we wrote here. It’s a big debate across the world and still a factual mystery.

Good luck, take a look at Dr Dyers interpretation of Jesus, its modern and would be acceptable in a modern society. Doesn’t mean it’s right but as he states it’s just his message.

Sean – Please believe me that I was an Atheist at one point in time of my life, and I was pretty convinced that there was no God, and the people who influenced my Atheist belief were communists. But gradually I started asking very deep questions in my life that Atheism was incapable of answering. So I thought, ok, there must be a creator, but I was refusing to accept that this creator is the God that the Bible is talking about, but then lots of experiences in my life led me to believe in Jesus Christ. I am not saying that I have answered all the questions that are in my mind. I still have lots of questions unanswered, but I found that Jesus Christ is the closest explanation to what I am asking about so far. I certainly don’t expect all people to feel the same way I feel, but these are my feelings so far.

From your initial posts you seem to be very philosophical and looking for answers, but we all are looking for answers. It’s healthy in my opinion to be able to do so and not come to a solid conclusion as most religions have done.

I believe you will appreciate something Dr Dyer said. I will somewhat quote him. In fact Jesus might have been trying to say this but people screw things up……. Where does a thought come from, something as simple as moving your arm. You choose to move your arm and it happens but where did that thought come from. You might say your brain but how did your brain manifest that. That is something science can’t explain. It is a divine power in all of us to create. We create a thought from nothing, these are clues to how the universe may have been created. We have this power but cannot harness it or understand it. Instead mankind has built religions and screwed up the meaning of what is still a mystery and called it God. I dont believe God has this ultimate power to judge us or to perform miracles. I prefer to use the wording a divine presence is in all of us instead of misinterpreted God but I will. It is a mystery and I believe we all have this creation inside us but it does not perform miracles. What created everything is a mystery and how you create your thoughts are a mystery and maybe the two are relate-able. They are not a divine power in that they make miracles, its a divine power that is infinite in all of us. We are creators. You create your life based on your manifested thoughts, but they are not manifested because they came from nothing or an infinite beginning.

I believe religions screwed this up and these groups have developed social acceptance of what is already in all of us and turned it into something like a being that judges us.

If we get social numbers to agree on something that is already in all of us we could get rid of wars with regards to religion.

But again I believe Jesus Dr Dyer others, you and I are all human and subject to error in any of these thoughts because the divine is still a guess and or mystery to all. So I caution all the time to keep a continuous open mind in my opinion.

I think you will appreciate this kind of thinking and am glad to hear you have been thinking throughout your divine existence so far.

Sean – Throughout my debate with you, you seemed to be very concerned about violence and wars and what is causing them. You seemed to be very concerned about Hitler and the attempt of the extermination of the Jews. Believe me Jesus Christ has nothing to do with all of these things, whether directly or indirectly. As a matter of fact, the aim of Jesus Christ was to abolish hatred, violence, and wars, but like you said, people always screw things up, and people did not start screwing things up only after Jesus came to earth. People have been screwing things up since the dawn of history. Violence, wars and attempts of exterminations are definitely more than 2000 years old.

I was not concerned with violence and wars with this debate as a goal, but I am concerned about them. As you said wars are not just because of religion.

Religious beliefs because of man not necessarily because of the teachings of religion cause wars, not all of them of course. However, some religions directly do cause wars. I reference wars because it is evil not good. Primarily whatever my divine source is; aims to do good.

I am not concerned about Hitler, I was using him as a reference because someone found Santa Clause not so serious of a reference to my underlying point, all along. That point is that people can be swayed and or tricked into believing anything, including the divine bad or divine good.

I don’t know if Jesus tricked us with magic shows or not. Or, if he said he performed miracles. It may be that others stretched the truth and misinterpreted his teachings throughout the years. So yes, I agree his intentions were that of the divine good as I have said. My assumption he is a con in a good way may be wrong if that is the case. I just don’t believe in magic and miracles performed by others in the past. I believe religion stretched the truth trying to make what we still don’t understand into something permanent; that was that of a god that no other challengers can challenge.

My previous point for example, could be laughable to someone, therefore belittling my point. My previous point is the best point in existence thus far to me. So if someone challenges it, then it would be great to say that some powerful God told me it was this way. I think, that is what religions have tried to do since their existence because we really have no supporting facts period.

Sean – Just for the sake of discussion, I am going to assume that we are swayed and tricked by a good con called Jesus Christ, and just for the sake of discussion, I am going to assume that all the miracles and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are pure magic and completely false; therefore, if there is somebody like Jesus Christ that is capable of doing such things, then humanity is always prone to be tricked and swayed by anybody at anytime. So even when we eliminate Jesus Christ from the picture, there is nothing that says that there is not going to be somebody else that is going to trick and sway people into believing anything, whatever that thing is, and that includes you right at this point in time right now. You yourself may have been tricked and swayed by whoever influenced you beliefs and your thinking. Nobody can ever claim that his belief is completely independent and completely objective without any sort of influence and any sort of intervention, because we are simply humans and this is human nature. Human nature is always ready to be influenced and to be swayed. In summary, we humans are EXTREMELY weak.

Sean – One more thing I have to tell you, and that is: I totally agree with you that there are religions that cause wars, but in order to accuse a religion of causing wars, there would have to be an explicit call for war in that religion. I don’t want to address all the religions of the world, because I don’t claim to know a whole lot about the religions of the world, but I can tell you about the sister religions of Christianity, which are Islam and Judaism. In these two religions there are explicit calls for wars under certain circumstances; however, in Christianity, Jesus Christ never called for wars under any circumstances. Please read all what Jesus Christ said in the bible, and you will never find a single call for wars, but on the contrary, Jesus was very explicitly preaching against wars. Please read chapters 5, 6, and 7 in the Gospel of Matthew, and you’ll understand what I mean.

I noticed that there is one hurdle, among others, in Christianity for you, and that is the subject of hell. I don’t think you should summarize Christianity by the word “hell”. Let people who are going to hell worry about hell; and who is going to hell? Notice that at some point in these chapters I gave you above, Jesus is asking his disciples and his audience not to “judge”, and in (John 5:22) Jesus says: “Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to his Son,”

I know there are plenty of people who try to make judgments on who is going to heaven and who is going to hell, but it is very obvious that these people don’t even have the right to make such judgments.

I relate to your first post very well, I would just say Amen, but throughout this debate I have said I am among the stupid, sorry for using stupid again. I know I can be tricked given historical facts, so I have always said I keep an open mind, I can only live with the best knowledge I have in the social society I am currently in and do the best to survive in an existence that I feel my divine existence is at peace.

Primarily what society believes is good is what makes me feel good by the majority of what we as a race believe is good. Something as simple as holding a door open for someone makes me feel good. As I said I don’t entirely understand that. I have also said several times I am still keeping an open mind unless something is proven that our entire race can relate to. Keeping an open mind is what I believe our world will get to in the future. Turning our opinions into fact is where the animosity starts and I will not do that with mine regardless if it would be nice to do so.

I don’t think we are extremely weak, what makes us weak can also make us strong, so we need to harness that. Being aware that we can be weak will keep us strong.

Jesus was extremely intellectual and that’s why, initially I said and was taught not to preach as a christian. First because I could screw it up. Second. Jesus prefers not to fight back against those who don’t want to listen to his preaching because this debate causes the animosity and he knows that. He knows that because he understands our human race and our weaknesses. So therefore your probably right if we actually followed his teachings we would not end up in a war or even be in debate right now.

However, the problem with that is we at some point have to defend something if we believe something without fact, otherwise we would be overruled by another belief. Therefore, I don’t think we have it right.

I think we screwed up what Jesus was trying to say by inventing a God as a “being” that judges, so that other more ridiculous beliefs would not take over as the way it should be. So we have to make a belief in order to defend off other beliefs, and in that man made belief we stretched the words of Jesus altering what he really said. He was just trying to tell us that God is in all of us. What is meant by God is still unknown. That is my opinion and of course could be wrong so I still am open minded to what the divine really is.

I can create a thought from nothing and science can’t explain where the thought came from so I believe I have the divine energy in me. That’s if its even an energy. But, Einstein did say energy cannot be destroyed or made from nothing only be changed in form. This is a fact. However, we are energy so we must change form when we die. The word die as society has assumed death to be. Even a rock has energy and is constantly moving under a microscope.

Somehow everything is related, but something even greater than energy is a thought made from nothing and we have that ability. My mind is always open and always thinking. I believe Jesus was doing the same as a human though not as a son of a God. But that statement alone is what we screwed up as to what he was actually saying. In my opinion; that will not close without a fact.

I agree no one can say who’s going to hell, but hell was likely also interpreted wrong and is likely a fictional place made up by a human to scare off other challengers of other beliefs. Hence the term “your going to hell if you don’t believe”

With regards to Jesus saying he is god, I believe he was also saying you and I are also God. He was still human in my opinion and so are the writings. Therefore, they could be in error. Religions try to protect themselves from error because in order for society to believe we need someone who wrote something that was without error if we are to explicitly follow it. This is the ego part of all religions, human in nature and misrepresented.

This all perfectness is a con that people have developed not necessarily related to Christian teaching or what Jesus was actually saying. Either way I do not believe he was the sole source of the divine unknown because we all are.

I have said before Christianity is not directly related to wars but when you have a belief as a group without fact…..animosity with follow that religion.

If you tell an American women to cover her face with a cloth because of another religious belief, then we won’t need men to go to war because the women will kill everyone who ever said such a thing. Nobody is going to tell them to cover their face. Christianities belief that women can’t preach in church is also a social flaw by today’s standards.

There are social wars and religious wars to name a few. We are not perfect. Jesus knew that and tried his best and did not succeed so I don’t expect that I have the answer either.

I believe what Jesus meant by a perfect being judging you is yourself. God as you call it or the divine knowing as I prefer to call it is in you. The only one capable of perfect…..the only one capable of judging you…….is you.

I’m not talking about your ego judging you when you bully a kid for example and you can just shrug it off and say to yourself “whatever”…. I’m talking about the part of you that most of us never reach, deep down you know bullying a kid is wrong and your divine; lives with that……not in harmony but in it’s hell……and your health truly does suffer. I believe that is what Jesus meant by hell and yes it would have existed in earlier humans as well.

Hi Sean – Just going over the blog and reading what everybody wrote. I don’t mean to open a whole new debate, but you mentioned something above about Jesus, and I quote you: “A writer, that’s obvious.”

No, Jesus was definitely NOT a writer, because he never wrote anything at all. It was his disciples and followers who wrote, but definitely not him.

If you corrected me than so it stands, Jesus was not a writer? But, I assumed he was the backbone behind the writings, otherwise Christian believers are just following what other humans wrote. Or as you call them disciples.

To open up another can of worms though. I just watched an interesting show on TV. It was about how the earth and how life started 14 billion years ago. It was 14 billion years summed up into 2 hours.

They mentioned religious beliefs. How it started, why, where, when, and what.

What started it was Judaism.

When it started was summarized as a very short time ago. Meaning it has nothing to do with our how our existence came to be, only another form of control.

Where, Rome not as we know it today. Why not everywhere I ask???

Why it started was a means to help us with control; as I have said, we need it as a young culture. We do not need it any more in evolved societies and it will not stop all the bad things you speak of. Bad things have been happening since the existence of any religions start as history has proven. And as history proves if religion will not stop bad things from happening then don’t blame current problems on the loss of religion. Our problems are far fewer than a loss of crops and starvation.

How religion started, was just after we started settling down in one area as humans instead of roaming the earth for food. We were able to do so because of crops. Crops got to be demanding that if we as humans didn’t prepare properly for the next year we would be without food as a society. With that came government to control the harvest, so that our communities would not starve, then along came religion to control people in large groups “socially” To socially control people because government was overwhelmed with problems of what is right and who did what to who and therefore what is the punishment.

If you look at when religions started in comparison to when life started and scale that time down. Then religion has only existed for about 30 minutes.

Religion regardless of its believers is really just a hiccup in comparison to the age of the universe. Religion really has no significance with regards to the universe and its creation. In fact the creation of fire has more significance on our current culture than what religion has done for it. Even the invention of the wheel has more significance. And the invention of the industrial engine has changed humanity more so in such a short time than anything in existence known to history. The invention of religion as I call it is just a small bump in our evolution soon to be gone by majority evolution. However, there will always be those people that will walk rather than drive a “Sun” powered car.

“You see” Religion is just another course we are going through as we evolve. I am so glad a show like that has been aired. It confirms “by theory” what I have been saying. Now I feel like I belong to a group that is the next step in our short….very short evolution as humans so far. That is a group that uses science to express their theories….not forced fed beliefs. The group I talk of is open to clues and evidence of how everything started. This group, I believe will be the new majority in a very short time, which is what makes it exciting to me. The group always existed but not as a majority and therefore had little support.

I believe religion has slowed our path to finding the right answers. We already have a lot of evidence to support the theories of the big bang theory for example. We would be closer to a solid answer if we at first did not use religion as a focus. However we did, and we likely needed it at the time just to develop as a controlled social group.

Hi Sean – Some people never admit a mistake, and some people never apologize about making a mistake.

Yes, I am very aware of the “Big Bang” THEORY. I would never be able to dispute what the scientists say, because I am not a scientist; so I would have to assume that what they are saying is correct, but should I also assume that all the scientists that believe in the “Big Bang” theory are Atheists and they don’t believe in Jesus Christ?

I tried to do some small research on the “Big Bang” theory. I found out that it is totally beyond me, and I would never be able to understand the formulas that they are using, but I noticed that they were talking about and expanding and contracting universe. That would imply a couple of things. That would imply that the scientists have reached the end of the universe, and that would also imply that the universe has boundaries. So I think the next thing that the scientists have to tell us about is what is beyond the boundaries of the universe.

In your first paragraph I am assuming I should apologize for calling Jesus a writer. I don’t feel an apology is appropriate being in the debate we are in. But if it helps I apologize. Following Jesus as a human to me; his teachings if followed correctly would give you the ability to never ask or require an apology. Again a very intellectual man to me but not a God. So were his disciples.

I quote you

“Yes, I am very aware of the “Big Bang” THEORY. I would never be able to dispute what the scientists say, because I am not a scientist; so I would have to assume that what they are saying is correct, but should I also assume that all the scientists that believe in the “Big Bang” theory are Atheists and they don’t believe in Jesus Christ?”

Now I reverse it.

Yes, I am very aware of religion. I would never be able to dispute what the priests say, because I am not a priest; so I would have to assume that what they are saying is correct, but should I also assume that all priests that believe in Christianity theory are haters of science and they don’t believe in science or that the unknown may just be unknown to us.

Also, in your third paragraph you say science is beyond you. Do you know how many people find religion beyond them. Some riddles still wing right over my head from what I have read in the bible. Researching one or the other makes you knowlegeable, period.

Finally why is it always scientists that have to prove what exists beyond the universe when religions have told us nothing at all, other than beliefs.

Religious beliefs in comparison would be the equivalent of beliving in a cure for cancer and doing nothing about it, which is retarded. At least scientists say there might be a cure so we are going to look for it.

Sean – I am not asking you to apologize because you called Jesus a writer. You called Jesus some terrible things, and I did not ask you to apologize. Here it is clear that you made a mistake, and I personally would apologize when I make a mistake. Of course I am not “requiring” you to make an apology. I would never allow myself to require anybody to make an apology about anything.

We already went over this before, and you declared your lack of belief in Jesus Christ as being God. I swear to you that I got that point, and it is very clear in my mind that you believe that Jesus Christ is purely human. You have no proof for that, so it has to be called a belief. You might call it an opinion, but the difference between an opinion and belief is extremely vague.

Religion never claimed to have proof for anything. Religion is based on faith, and if you lack faith, then you definitely cannot belong to any religion at all. Of course there are limited things that religion can prove. God is not something that we can prove or disprove. It is science that deals with proving or disproving things. So that’s why the burden of proof has always to fall on the back of science, because, I repeat, science is the one that deals with proofs.

I don’t know about all religions, but the Catholic Church is definitely not a hater of science at all. You may have run into some priest(s) that are haters of science, but the philosophy of the Catholic Church is not determined by a priest here and a priest there. It is determined by the Vatican, and the Vatican is definitely not a hater of science.

Religion is beyond ALL people including religious people, and that includes all clergymen, and that includes the Pope. None of us can explain God in 100% clear terms. None of us can explain the Holy Trinity in 100% clear terms. But scientists and science are supposed to be precise in their understanding of things; otherwise, they would become just another religion.

Finally, I am very hesitant to talk to you about the miracles performed by the Lord Jesus Christ today curing all sort of illnesses through prayers, because I know for sure that this is a laughable matter to you.

It’s not even clear to me now if I made a mistake or what your paragraph was insinuating. Doesnt matter to me. However you say I called Jesus terrible names. Your reference to terrible is your opinion, calling someone something that describes them is not terrible. That is science working backwards because of religion when we should be moving forward. Now our world needs to disprove religion as well in order to get scientific support for our reseaerch of the unknown. Religion is just another road block we as a people have to get over and we will have to do it slowly I guess.

There is nothing vague about the difference between an opinion and a belief. Let me remind you what I have been saying all along. A belief is a pychological state that one holds a proposition to be true. An opinion is something formed from unsubstantiated information, meaning an opinion can change as new facts or as new information arises to the subject. RELIGION IS NOT AN OPINION ITS A PYCHOLOGICAL BELIEF.

Now your changing that to the word faith. Means the same as a belief. It must be nice to lay back on a religious faith and watch science do all the hard work. If I catch cancer I will just rely on faith to heal me instead of science is what your saying.

Wouldnt that be lazy of our world. Just have faith in a religion and stop looking for an answer.

Religion is a stronghold holding us back from finding evidence of what is unknown. Religion was needed and had its place but really has to go now.

Never said religion was a hater of science, I just reversed your paragraph to try to enlighten your opinion on science.

Saying science can become another religion is laughable. Science not only is based on facts but it is open to educated opinions in what they have not yet solved. That is not a religion or cult, just a group open for discussion should you bring to them evidence and supporting material. Fact based becomes a fact. Then we can have a chance at obtaining proof but you have to work hard to obtain proof.

Religious people (not the vatican) sit here all smug and watch others work while your beliefs hold them back is what I am saying. Not saying the vatican hates science.

As far as cures go with religion; is all about stress relief. Our body is difuncional when burdened with stress, some find peace (stress relief) through religion. However your body finds stress relief will give your body the best chance to cure itself. This does not mean religion is responsible for cures it is just your state of mind. If you can control your mind you would not need religion to cure your stress related ailments.

Ilnesses from stress is not laughable so fire away. However, I have seen many miracles preplanned by people who said they were ill but were not. There are several cons throughout history that have tried these sorts of tricks, so who is to say it was not done with success in the past.

Sean – I think there are things that are missing in the translation. You’re making me say things that I never said. At any rate, this method of debating can be frustrating, because each one writes a whole essay, and we are supposed to respond on each point with precision and clarity, and the structure and nature of blogs make it difficult to do so. Nice chatting with you anyway.

I agree the blogs are not organized and essay like. Be better if they were in order by date at this point.

I guess were somewhat off topic as well. Good luck and it was nice to be a part of the blog.

It’s good we can blog without swords in our hands being were on opposite sides of a 30 or more sided fence. If this is it, then good luck with everything.

My hope is that we socially find answers to all our beliefs and opinions that we can all agree on. In order to do that it is in my opinion we will need proof or at least accept that we need to explore the unkown.

Sean – It is not Christian people who said that Jesus is God. It is Jesus himself who said it. It is not Christian people that spoke about the existence of hell, but the Bible itself talks about hell, and the concept of hell was not introduced by Jesus. The concept of hell exists all over the Bible even before the coming of Jesus Christ.

Jesus NEVER asked anybody to go to war to spread the word of Christ. It is people who did so at some points in time, and that can happen with any religion, and it is not strictly a Christian phenomenon to defend religion. Even if we abolish Christianity, that does not prevent a future belief to use force to spread its belief, and we saw that very clearly with Communism and the Soviet Union.

What is “hell”? there is good and evil on earth, and it is our belief that the destiny of good cannot be the same as the destiny of evil. That’s in summary what hell is. It is the destiny of evil, and all the human race is a sinner, and Jesus at one point in the Bible when they were getting ready to stone the adulterer to death, He said to them “Let he who has no sin, cast the first stone.” At that point, Jesus forced everybody to examine themselves, and they all discovered that they were all sinners, and they don’t have the right to stone the adulterer. That’s why we believe that only a PERFECT being can definitely make a fair judgement on who is going to hell and who is not going to hell.

I agree with your post except now your saying I have a belief which is the biggest problem in all of this. What I believe is an opinion to me. I will not say to anyone in that they shall accept it; because a fictional character said that is the way it is.

As I have said all along. Facts are not up for debate, they are proof and can’t be argued. Religions try to reverse these tables.

My beliefs are opinions like as if we are trying to solve a math problem. I have a belief if we do this we will get the answer, in the end if we don’t solve anything then all we did was try and had our opinions in doing so.

Religions go around this problem by subbing an imaginary number into the equation and say there the problem is solved and I have the solution.

I will continue to keep an open mind unless someone provides proof of how the equation works with real numbers that provide proof as a fact. Otherwise we can just grab any number we want and throw it into the problem. Hence, this is why we have so many different religions. Nobody has solved the problem.